DENVER -- Two parking enforcement officers have been charged with forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery after allegedly writing a ticket to get even with an angry motorist.

Investigators said officers Eric Madril and John Brian Culhane conspired to write a handicap parking ticket for Joshua Miscles.

Miscles told 7NEWS that he parked at 17th and Market streets in downtown Denver in August 2009 and was issued a ticket because he didn’t have a license plate on the front of his car.

“The plate was on my dash,” Miscles said. “When I saw the officer, I told him I had a plate.”

Miscles said the officer, whom he identified as Madril, laughed at him and told him to pay his fine.

Miscles said that made him angry. He admits calling the officer “a piece of (expletive) meter maid,” but said he paid the fine and thought that was the end of it.

“A month later my wife is giving me ‘the fifth’ because I got a ticket for parking in a handicap (space),” Miscles said. “I told her I didn’t park in a handicap.”

The notice about the second ticket arrived in the mail as a reminder that he was late paying the fine, which by then had doubled.

Miscles said he decided to fight the second ticket. He said he went downtown and took pictures to show the judge that there was no handicap parking space where his car was parked, nor where the second ticket was reportedly issued.

The judge threw out that second ticket and asked Public Works to investigate.

Public Works officials determined that the officer who wrote the second ticket, John Culhane, was actually writing tickets at 3281 S. Oneida and 2978 S. Newport in southeast Denver at the time and couldn’t have been downtown.

Police began investigating the case.

On Monday, the district attorney charged Madril with conspiracy to commit forgery, and Culhane with both forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery.

“This appears to be a one-time incident,” said district attorney spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough. “In terms of public trust it‘s a very serious matter. It’s not just the public trust. It affects every city employee who does a good job, who takes their responsibility seriously.”

Public Works Communications Manager Daelene Mix told 7NEWS that both Culhane and Matril are on investigatory leave pending final agency action.

When asked if the enforcement officers should lose their jobs, Miscles said, “I think so.”

He said, “If you get charged with a felony, especially in the line of work they do, I don’t think they should be working.”

Miscles said he’s sorry that the charges were filed just before the holidays.

“I feel sorry for their families,” he said. “But what they did was wrong.”

Miscles said he should never have let his emotions get the best of him.

“I didn’t have to pay the second fine,” he said, “but I missed two days of work which cost me more money than the ticket was worth.”