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Operation Crooked Highway: Federal Prosecutors charge six with driver's license fraud

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Federal prosecutors charged six people, including two state driver's license examiners, Wednesday with a conspiracy to issue possibly thousands of fraudulent driving licenses and certificates to illegal immigrants.

A federal indictment lists charges ranging from paying bribes, taking bribes and transporting illegal workers into the state to get the fraudulent driving documents. Authorities said they won't know how many illegal documents were issued until all evidence is studied and declined to speculate on the total.

They did say that one state worker accepted $20 per student in bribes for about 1,000 licenses or certificates. "We come to you with another sad chapter in the book of public corruption in Tennessee," FBI agent in charge My Harrison said at an afternoon news conference. Two of those charged worked at the driver's license examining station in Murfreesboro, a Nashville suburb.

Tennessee began licensing illegal immigrants in early 2001 but in response to terrorism concerns switched in 2004 to issuing driving certificates that are labeled not to be used for identification. The indictment unsealed Wednesday says that Safety Department employee Bruce Conklin and former employee Teresa Jones took bribes from a driving school. Conklin is accused of taking $9,200 in cash payments from July through January while Jones allegedly got $20,000 from May 2004 through March. Bryan Guess, who owns the Winchester Driving School, was charged along with former school worker Sheila Robertson with paying bribes between May 2004 and March 2005.

Jones went to work for the driving school after she left state government. Prosecutors said Winchester Driving School had a contract with the state to issue "third-party certificates" after providing six hours of driving instruction and administering written and road driving tests to students.

According to the indictment, the school was accepting money to issue the third-party certificate without any training or tests. Shun Gao was charged with paying cash to the school in exchange for the certificates.

Syed Abbas Parvez, an illegal immigrant living in Georgia, was charged with transporting another illegal immigrant from Pakistan to Tennessee to get a fraudulent license through the driving school.

The joint federal-state investigation was dubbed Operation Crooked Highway. About 100 illegal immigrants are being deported as a result of the investigation, federal immigration agent Rick Crocker said.

U.S. Attorney Jim Vines said three people, including a former state worker at a driver's license station in the Nashville suburb of Gallatin, had already pleaded guilty in the case. Vines credited the Safety Department with starting the investigation. "They did a fantastic job of cleaning their own house," he said. Interim Safety Commissioner Gerald Nicely said the department is studying an overhaul of licensing procedures, including how to prevent fraud. "Obviously what we're doing here today will be a big deterrent," he said.

The Safety Department has been at the center of a series of scandals, including Highway Patrol officers with criminal backgrounds, ticket-fixing and an atmosphere of political favoritism. Nicely has been assigned there temporarily to help develop a reform plan.

Wednesday's indictment follows arrests last July in East Tennessee of an illegal immigrant from Argentina and her boyfriend on charges they shuttled other illegal immigrants from New Jersey to Tennessee to get fraudulent licenses and certificates.

Citing a number of recent public corruption investigations in Tennessee, Harrison said agents were getting better with practice. "If you can hear me and are involved in public corruption, the eyes of law enforcement are upon you," she said.