Senior DMV Employee Sentenced for Selling Driver’s Licenses
Cheryl Huff, 49, and Mario Paz-Mejia, 50, were sentenced to 37 months and 30 months in prison, respectively. The couple previously entered guilty pleas in December of last year on charges of conspiracy to produce, without lawful authority, identification documents or false identification documents.
The plea agreements have the couple admitting to creating over 100 false driver’s licenses or identification cards for people who were not legally qualified to obtain them, a direct violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028(f). Paz-Mejia would find customers who were not US citizens or even residents of Tennessee who were willing to pay to receive a driver’s license or ID card. He would charge $2,500 and provide them with fake citizenship and residency documents – such as false birth certificates, Social Security cards, and out-of-state driver’s licenses – to be used to obtain an official Tennessee license or ID, according to the press release.
After the customers received the documents, Hugg would use her access to the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security internal network to confirm the information and initiate the applications for valid Tennessee driver’s licenses and ID cards. Huff also persuaded fellow employees to process applications as well, according to the U.S Attorney’s Office.
This mirrors a similar case from Massachusetts in 2017, where six people were arrested in a scam that involved four Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) employees, according to the Justice Department. In that case, corrupt RMV clerks were providing stolen driver’s licenses and ID cards to illegal immigrants for cash. A “document dealer” would sell Puerto Rican birth certificates and Social Security cards to insiders, who would then use those documents to create legitimate MV documents. Criminals would sell those documents to buyers– most of whom were in the country illegally– for $2,000
or more.
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