DMV worker LaFlamme given 3 years in license scam

01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, August 8, 2009

By Katie Mulvaney

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — A federal judge sentenced a former state Division of Motor Vehicles clerk to three years in prison Friday for her role in a scam to make fake Rhode Island drivers’ licenses and sell them to customers, including illegal immigrants and accused criminals.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mary M. Lisi gave Dolores Rodriguez LaFlamme three years, plus three years supervised release, for her part in the conspiracy that operated out of the Pawtucket branch of the DMV.

LaFlamme has been held on an outstanding deportation order to the Dominican Republic since her arrest in the fall of 2007 and faces deportation after her sentence is concluded, federal prosecutors said.

A jury in November found LaFlamme, 41, guilty of conspiracy to produce fraudulent identification documents; six counts of producing fraudulent IDs; and five counts of aggravated identity theft after a trial in U.S. District Court.

At trial, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard W. Rose and Richard B. Myrus, assisted by state police Detective Matthew C. Moynihan, portrayed LaFlamme as a cunning manipulator motivated by greed. They argued LaFlamme used her position as a DMV clerk in Pawtucket to fraudulently produce 35 licenses that she sold through middlemen to customers seeking to conceal their identities, or because they couldn’t pass the written test. Some sold for as much as $2,700.

LaFlamme made the license by manipulating the DMV’s process for issuing licenses to people who held licenses in other states, prosecutors said. Those individuals do not have to go through the normal testing, but rather apply for a Rhode Island license and surrender his or her out-of-state license.

The prosecutors argued that drivers receiving licenses from LaFlamme did not fill out applications with the DMV or have to trade in licenses. A government informant also testified that he bought a license while posing as a drug dealer who needed an alias. He told jurors that he arranged to buy additional licenses for his crew, if the deal worked out.

Soraya Santiago, another DMV clerk also arrested in 2007 in the scheme, testified against LaFlamme at the trial after reaching a plea deal with state prosecutors.

Lisi Friday accepted a joint sentencing recommendation from federal prosecutors and LaFlamme’s lawyer, George W. West, of 36 months to serve. Under the agreement, the government dropped the identity-theft counts she had been convicted of and LaFlamme waived her right to appeal. She had faced 41 to 51 months in prison.

In sentencing LaFlamme, Lisi stressed that LaFlamme would have faced a full year less time had she pleaded out in the case. By taking the stand at trial, LaFlamme subjected herself to a more severe sentence for obstruction of justice for not telling the truth on the stand, the judge said.

“You didn’t do yourself any favors, but you’re going to pay for that,â€