Woman earns 42 months for license fraud

Published: Thursday, November 18, 2010

By KEITH PHUCAS
Times Herald Staff

PHILADELPHIA — A North Wales woman is headed to federal prison for helping illegal aliens obtain driver’s licenses fraudulently.

Mal S. Lee, 55, was sentenced Monday to 42 months in prison. The Montgomery Township woman operated a business and arranged for illegal aliens and others to get Pennsylvania drivers’ licenses using fraudulent identification documents such as passports and visas, according to federal prosecutors.

On Thursday, Lee’s co-defendant Alphonso Wilson, 48, of Philadelphia, was sentenced to six months’ house arrest and five years’ probation for his role in a fraud scheme to obtain licenses in exchange for bribes.

Wilson operated a driving school that made cash payments to Pennsylvania state drivers’ license examiners to issue licenses to individuals who took perfunctory driving tests — or no tests at all — and the operation helped applicants cheat on driving tests, according to authorities.

The sentences were part of a two-year investigation led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Homeland Security Investigations, formerly known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, into several illegal businesses that assisted people in the U.S. illegally, foreign nationals and others obtain driver’s licenses through fraudulent means at various Pennsylvania Department of Transportation licensing centers in Philadelphia.

The case was also investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Office of Inspector General, the FBI and the Pennsylvania State Police. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard J. Zack.

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