It appears Robert and Cindy Nolot’s three-year headache with parking officials in New York City has come to an end – unless, of course, the headache comes back.

We’ve written about the Nolots a couple of times, about how they put their expired Indiana University specialty license plate in a recycling bin, about how only days later they started getting billed for parking tickets issued to someone using the same plate in New York, and about how they spent the next three years fighting the tickets, which just kept coming.

The Nolots called Fort Wayne police after the first ticket arrived. They surmised that the plate had been stolen from a recycling bin and was being used by someone else.

Police and the Nolots had good reason to believe that. The plate had expired July 31, 2007, and within a week a car with the same plate had gotten its first parking ticket in New York. Certainly, they thought, the state wouldn’t actually make a plate with the same number and reissue it to someone within a week.

The whole issue started to get sorted out when a New York police lieutenant who declined to speak to us started looking into the issue.

Robert Nolot said the detective directed him to an official in charge of fraud with the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, who apologized profusely over any confusion and frustration the Nolots experienced.

The Nolots had their IU specialty plate for a few years, but when they didn’t reserve a new IU plate in early 2007, the BMV assumed they didn’t want such a plate anymore. (Robert Nolot, for one, had no idea he had to reserve a plate in advance.)

Meanwhile, in 2007 the state started printing new license plates, including specialty plates. Robert Nolot said he’s been told that because he hadn’t reserved his old number, the state cranked out a new plate with his old number. That explains how a plate with his old number could show up on a different car so quickly.

It just happens that the person who got that new plate tended to spend a lot of time in New York. Apparently when that driver got a parking ticket and didn’t pay it, New York officials somehow determined the plate belonged to the Nolots, starting a three-year headache for the family.

BMV officials we spoke to were mystified how New York officials linked the Nolots to the plate and not the new owner. When a plate is reassigned, it is supposed to be instantaneously recorded in BMV records.

The Nolots say they have been assured that this has all been sorted out and everything is over. No more letters, no more threats. They are told that the stolen-plate report they filed with Fort Wayne police three years ago will be rescinded.

Meanwhile, to avoid any further confusion, the BMV is going to cancel the IU plate with their old number and issue a free new plate to the person who now has the plate. Once and for all, there will be no cars on the road with the Nolots’ old plate number, eliminating any chance of confusion.

But what about those dozen or so New York tickets that the Nolots got billed for? Well, Robert Nolot says, it appears they are just going to be forgiven. So the person who got them is now off the hook.