Question for LEOs

[Lex_Luthor]

Is it common practice to pull someone over for a license plate infraction, run their license which comes up as "denied" (whatever that means) and then impound someone's car for unpaid parking tickets?

Yesterday my fiance was driving her Jeep to the library and was contacted by Adams County Sheriff. Apparently her license plate registration is past due (neither of us had checked in a while, dummy mistake on our part), but when he ran her license he told her it was "denied". Not suspended. Not under revocation. Denied. He asked if she was aware that her license was "denied" and she didn't even know what that meant. He told her she shouldn't be driving, and that this had been in effect since June of 2008. She NEVER received anything from the Dept of Motor Vehicles saying anything about an issue with her license. She doesn't have any moving violations. Just a couple parking tickets from Denver that need to be paid. She had honestly just forgotten about them. Then the officer told her that he would just give her a court summons instead of impounding the car, because he "trusted" that she would just drive home and not drive again. Her summons is for expired registration and for driving with a "denied" license.

Here's where it gets weird. She called the Dept of Motor Vehicle License Division, and talked to a high-up manager. He looked at her license record and said that it isn't "denied" and has no idea what the officer was talking about. Her license isn't suspended, it isn't revoked, and more over, there's NOTHING in there referring to the year 2008 that would indicate anything similar. She called the court and they had NO idea what the officer was talking about either. They said that they would tow a car if it was illegally parked, but from that location, not after an officer made contact with someone. Or they would boot the car, but they said that unpaid parking tickets have NO bearing on one's license.

So she's going to be calling the police station itself this morning to ask, and to challenge why was a ticket even written for "driving while license denied."

....? Any LEOs have any input? How would the officer even be able to run her license and come up with something completely different than even the DMV has on file? Aren't they looking at the same database? How come both the DMV and the Court have absolutely NO idea what this guy was talking about?

BTW: She's pretty sure it wasn't an impersonator. It was a fully marked, Adams County Sheriff car, he had a complete uniform, his badge number and name are on the summons, and it was a legitimate court summons.

FORGOT TO ADD: Oh yeah, AND he fingerprinted her when she signed the court summons! Right there, on the spot. I've never had this happen before. Is this new standard procedure?