Fill this form out now.
Do it online and it will be valid as soon as you submit it.
LINK TO SITE
Problem is you need an address to put in the new owners spot, and if they are no longer there, kind of hard to do (you could still put that in since that was where you dropped the car and title off at).
Anything before this is submitted is unfortunately still going to be on you since you are still the legal registered owner, unless you can get your former friend to pay for it.
Take this as a learning experience, and a warning and notice to others. Know the laws of your state.
I learned this almost 20 years ago when I traded in a vehicle to a dealer and left the plates on the vehicle.
A few months later, I started getting parking tickets for the plates, something I was getting phone calls and mail from collection agencies for over a decade.
2 years after I had traded it, I had a visit from a Sherriff detective from 200 miles away asking me about the vehicle (vehicle was involved in a drug bust with the plates on it still in my name, officer said plates were evidence and would be destroyed after the trial).
Stupid me expected the dealer to fill out all the paperwork to show I was not the owner any more, but apparently was never done, even after I had gone back to the dealer 3x to get it resolved.
Since then, when I sell/trade a vehicle, I keep the old plates and fill out the VTR-346 form immediately, as well as get a pic of the buyers drivers license.
When I buy a vehicle, I offer the seller their plates if they have not taken them off.