Five Indicted For Illegally Selling Drivers Licenses

Five Louisville residents have been indicted by a federal grand jury for illegally selling Kentucky drivers licenses.

According to the indictment, the defendants, 32 year-old Donnita Wilson; 27 year-old Aariel Matthews; 32 year-old Raul Tellez Ojeda; 37 year-old Lazaro Alejandro Castello Rojas; and 41 year-old Robert Danger Correa devised and executed a scheme that solicited illegal fees between $200 and $1,500 from legally present, non-U.S. citizens who were applying for driver’s licenses on the promise that they would be expedited through the process without undergoing testing requirements.

The indictment also says that certain conspirators altered information in government databases to bypass important steps in the application process and, thereby, issued invalid licenses to the non-U.S. citizens. The indictment alleges the defendants perpetrated this scheme for their own financial gain, and betrayed the trust placed in them by Kentucky’s Transportation Cabinet.

Each of the defendants is charged with the following:

Mail Fraud (14 counts)
Mail Fraud Conspiracy (one count)
Honest Services Mail Fraud (14 counts)
Honest Services Mail Fraud Conspiracy (one count)
Unlawful Production of Identification Documents (14 Counts)
Money Laundering Conspiracy (one count)

This indictment represents the culmination of an investigation into a scheme by Kentucky Transportation Cabinet employees and others to illegally circumvent Kentucky’s process for issuing driver’s licenses, thereby issuing invalid licenses to lawfully present, non-U.S. citizens who had not first demonstrated their qualifications to drive on our roads, according to Kyle Bumgarner, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky. Proper vetting of individuals seeking a driver’s license is a prerequisite to ensuring the safety of Kentucky’s roadways and ensuring the legitimacy of state-issued identification. As alleged in the indictment, this fraudulent scheme involved kickbacks and bribes leading to numerous legally present, non-U.S. citizens obtaining unlawfully issued drivers licenses.

Several of the defendants were arraigned February 9 in Louisville before a U.S. Magistrate Judge. If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of 20 years for each count of mail fraud, mail fraud conspiracy, honest services mail fraud, and money laundering. They could also receive a maximum sentence of 15 years for each count of unlawful production of identification documents.
Source: WAVE