Thread: FL-8 examiners charged,sell driver licenses, 1,500 illegals

8 examiners charged in scheme to sell driver licenses to at least 1,500 illegal immigrants
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By ELIOT KLEINBERG and SONJA ISGER

Palm Beach Post Staff Writers

Thursday, September 17, 2009

DELRAY BEACH — In the end, prosecutors say, it was sloppiness and vanity as much as anything that tripped up state examiners accused of taking bribes to issue driver licenses to at least 1,500 illegal immigrants.

Eight people who worked at the license office in Delray Beach have been or soon will be arrested, including two who were first charged when the ring was broken in May and who now face new conspiracy counts, the Palm Beach County State Attorney's office said.


First appearances in court

Arrested in May
Maggie Nelson, 46, of Delray Beach, worked for the agency since 1997.*
Jashonda Kaliha Scott, 25, of Palm Springs, worked for the agency since 2007.
Patreese Harvey, 28, of Palm Springs, worked for the agency since 2006.
Debbie Collins, 42, of Belle Glade, worked for the agency since 2005.*
Melita Dera Zilea, 28, of Coral Springs, worked for the agency since 2008.
Adrien Alex, 42, of Delray Beach, being held for possible deportation to Haiti.
Note: Maggie Nelson and Debbie Collins were arrested again and are in jail this morning.


Debbie Collins


Chenita Byrd-Mosley


Osie Carter


Maggie Nelson


Jonex Moise




At least five were brought into court this morning for bond hearings.

Assistant State Attorney Alan Johnson, Palm Beach County's public corruption prosecutor, said the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles is now working to invalidate the illicit licenses.

According to an affidavit produced by the Florida Highway Patrol, which investigated the alleged conspiracy for the department, examiners took fees ranging from $500 to $2,500 per applicant.

While the report doesn't give the total take, it could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Investigators flagged 6,600 transactions that involved immigration forms and passports, reviewed three fourths of those, and found 1,503 fake licenses had been issued.

According to the affidavit, conspirators would generate counterfeit immigration documents and supply them to applicants, often handing paperwork to them in the parking lot of the office at Military Trail and Atlantic Avenue.

Conspirators then directed applicants - and in some cases personally walked them in - to one of the five license examiners who were in on the scam.

Few applicants took the mandatory written exam, much less the driving test, before walking away with valid licenses.

While it was tips that alerted investigators, the corrupt examiners all but waved red flags, the Highway Patrol's affidavit said.

Examiners deliberately ignored inconsistencies between fake documents and official ones, the kind they'd been specifically trained to look for and which were so blatant any examiner should easily have spotted them. They included missing codes, dates of birth in incorrect format, and stamps that were smeared and illegible.

Also, while the examiners earned less than $20,000 a year, they "openly and notoriously exhibited expensive personal items such as automobiles, home purchases, designer clothing, jewelry and accessories of an apparent cost far in excess of their means ," the report said.

Some of the predominantly Haitian, Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants probably just wanted licenses so they could stay in the country, get a job, open a bank account and not live in fear that a simple traffic stop would land them in jail with the next stop their home country, prosecutors say.

Others may have wanted them to snare lucrative jobs as drug mules. With a valid license, they would not have to worry that, if stopped with illicit cargo, their cars would be searched.

"It was insane what was going on," Elizabeth Parker, a chief assistant state attorney who headed a multi-agency task force investigating the matter, said after the first arrests in May. "They were bringing van loads of people from all over South Florida. It was so blatant."

Examiners kept count of how many customers they handled and would meet after work, away from the bureau, to divvy up their illicit gains, the report said.

When investigators stopped one conspirator in April as he left work, a search of his car showed 20 counterfeit immigration forms and nine fake passports along with ledgers containing dozens of names, with notations ranging from $480 to $1,200. That person later was deported to Haiti.

Arrested in the newest round:

Maggie Nelson, who turned 47 today, and Debbie Hunter Collins, 43, both of Delray Beach; and Chenita Byrd-Mosley, 29, Osie Carter, 49, and Jonex Moise, 35, all of the Boynton Beach area.

All were given supervised release, except Carter, whom Judge Ted S. Booras ordered held in lieu of $8,000 bail with the alternative of supervised release.

Arrested in May: Nelson and Collins; Alex Adrien, 42, of Delray Beach; Lashonda Kaliha Scott, 25, and Patreese Harvey, 28, both of Palm Springs; and Melita Dera Zilea, 28, of Coral Springs in Broward County.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/conte ... 7&cxcat=76

Some of the predominantly Haitian, Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants probably just wanted licenses so they could stay in the country, get a job, open a bank account and not live in fear that a simple traffic stop would land them in jail with the next stop their home country, prosecutors say.

Others may have wanted them to snare lucrative jobs as drug mules. With a valid license, they would not have to worry that, if stopped with illicit cargo, their cars would be searched.

The illegal inavders also participated in this fraud and are just as culpable! Yet once again, their illegal actions are basically dismissed under the guise or excuse they were only seeking a so called better life!!

As usual, the invaders will seemingly get a pass. I would expect the illegal invaders to not only lose that fradulent license, but to also be prosecuted and then deported! Or are they going to get a free pass because they committed their crimes in the quest of a better life?