A deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office has been arrested after alleged misconduct during motor vehicle inspections.
Deputy Christopher Robinson, 47, is charged with four counts of second-degree forgery, four counts of second-degree perjury, and one count of first-degree official misconduct.
According to court documents, Jefferson County Sheriff Office detectives with the Criminal Interdiction Division received a tip in early December that Robinson, who works for the Auto Inspections Division, was forging forms certifying inspections had been performed on vehicles that had never been inspected.
That tip began a two-week investigation, where detectives went through video footage from the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office and conducted physical surveillance on Robinson. An arrest report says both forms of investigation made it clear that Robinson had often submitted an overwhelming amount of TC 96-182 forms for vehicles that had not actually entered the inspection lot.
On December 22, court documents say detectives saw an unknown person place a manila folder on Robinson’s desk while he was away. Once Robinson returned, detectives said they saw him fill out multiple TC 96-182 forms, place them in the folder, and then put the folder in a desk drawer under another manila envelope that was used to collect money at the end of the day.
Detectives said they went through the folder when Robinson was at lunch, where they found five forms paper-clipped to vehicle titles of cars that had not been inspected, as well as copies of five different driver’s licenses.
According to police, once Mirandaized and confronted with the folder, Robinson admitted to forging forms multiple times for multiple people over an unknown amount of time. Robinson told police that the folder they found was given to him by a man known to law enforcement to salvage vehicles and has previously been charged with forgery on multiple occasions.
The sheriff’s office said Robinson has been suspended without pay pending the outcome of the criminal case. The office also stated that the investigation is related only to the Auto Inspection Unit and is not connected to roadside law enforcement.
Source: WAVE
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