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Two charged amid crackdown on illegal licenses
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WASHINGTON (Map, News) - A local restaurant owner was part of a scheme to provide illegal immigrants with fraudulent driver’s licenses, authorities said Thursday as new details about a raid on the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles center in Georgetown emerged.
Suspects purchased bogus IDs for several reasons; to hide their illegal immigrant status, because they couldn’t pass the driver’s test, or because they were involved in other criminal activities and wanted their identities hidden, FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman said.
The FBI opened the investigation in March 2007 after agents received information from a source, Weierman said.
That contradicts statements by D.C. officials who said the case was opened after the city’s own internal auditor discovered irregularities in city records. Mayor Adrian Fenty said the arrests were proof that the D.C. safeguards were working.
Two women who were arrested in the raid were arraigned in federal court on charges of conspiring to commit identify fraud. They each face up to 15 years in prison and deportation if convicted. Prosecutors said more charges, including bribing public officials, were likely pending the outcome of a grand jury investigation.
FBI officials were withholding the names of four persons arrested Wednesday, including the teller who worked at the DMV. One suspect was a minor, and another was an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was turned over to immigration authorities for deportation.
Inside the courtroom, defendants Gloria Gonzalez-Paz, 34, of Prince George’s County, and Dora Romero Morales, 29, of Vienna, appeared in separate hearings. Both women, who are in the U.S. on temporary work permits, wore headphones to listen to an interpreter.
Gonzalez-Paz, who owns a Tropicana Eatery franchise on 12th Street Northeast in D.C. with her husband, wiped tears from her cheeks.
Authorities said Romero Morales met Gonzalez-Paz and her 15-year-old daughter in the 3200 block of M Street outside the mall. The juvenile escorted Romero Morales to the lower level of the mall to where the DMV service center is located.
The teenager spoke to Romero Morales and pointed to the DMV offices, according to court documents. Romero Morales went into the offices and, without waiting in line, went straight to window No. 3, where a DMV employee, known as operator 1533, was sitting.
At the window, Romero Morales read from a sheet of paper that appeared to include a bogus D.C. address and information from a Virginia identification card, court documents state. The DMV employee fraudulently entered data into the DMV computer system and handed over a D.C. driver’s license without Romero Morales completing the required tests, authorities allege.
smccabe@dcexaminer.com
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2:47 PM MST on Wed., May. 28, 2008 re: "Two charged amid crackdown on illegal licenses"
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trisha williams said:
my comment is how can management of all DMV be so slow to the fact that if you put immigrants behind the desk to work at DMV they will find a way to give those lincense to illegals,thats common sense,thats the purpose of them applying for the jobs and because poor americans can't speak the way they speak you lose every time.when americans people start cracking down on their asses then this place will be a little better we'll be able to breathe better save money when they get a president who will make english afficial and not english /spanish and put them immigrants running back then i'll vote, this place use to be america but not no more,this place is dirty and poluted with people and who made it this way?the ones who think there so smart till they pass stupid.
0 agree | 1 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
The DMV is not the only place selling illegal IDs. In MD,DC and VA; illegal ID's can be brought.
107 agree | 120 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Mexican drug dealers love to use the excuse that if American addicts weren't BUYING drugs then they wouldn't be selling them. I guess that the same can be said of illegal aliens. If they weren't paying to corrupt an official, there wouldn't be any illegals with false identities. Better yet, they are ALL criminals, trying to deflect blame on the other for their OWN behavior.
107 agree | 101 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Slight error in your article. The licenses werent FAKE they were very REAL - the problem is that they were given to anybody who slipped a few bucks under the counter whether or not they were eligible for them. Which is scarier: That they were illegal immigrants or that they cant actually drive but now have a license?
104 agree | 92 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
The Government should put the Mastermind employee in prision and DEPORT THE ILLEGAL ALIENS.
126 agree | 88 disagree
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Ang..... said:
What happened at the DC DMV was just shameful. DC needs to investigate all there agencies to see if the workers they have hired are legit workers. I wonder what agency is next on the FBI list to raid or in connection with some type of illegal action. I wonder how many people now Fenty is going to fire in connection with the corruption in the DMV.
88 agree | 104 disagree
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Provocateur said:
That Joe! Quite the intellectual, isn't he?
110 agree | 81 disagree
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homnoir said:
Joe, It's nice to see that you're well read enough to believe EVERYTHING you read. Although the DC Gov't, like any other bureaucracy with big monies attracts thieves & crooks, it might surprise as well as ENLIGHTEN you to know that the majority of Gov't workers are not crooks, incompetent, shiftless, lazy, thoughtless and insensitive as so many of you desire to think, substantiating some of your views of delusional worker superiority. Don't let the news media provide you with biblical authority.
111 agree | 102 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Yea... when several of the 9/11 hijackers needed quick licenses with almost no documentation, they went to Virginia. That's efficiency!
88 agree | 54 disagree
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Joe Jena said:
Is anyone in the D.C. government honest? It's like a crime mafia.
116 agree | 78 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Bout time! I live in VA and have heard about such for some time now.
113 agree | 78 disagree
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