Thread: AL: Drivers license official pleads guilty to fraud

Drivers license official pleads guilty to fraud

Friday, October 19, 2007

By BRENDAN KIRBY
Staff Reporter

Two people involved in a conspiracy to provide drivers licenses to undocumented workers in Mobile pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges Thursday.

The guilty pleas came in separate hearings in Mobile's federal court from Marcos Martinez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico whose activities prompted the investigation, and Melissa Marizette-Green, to whom the probe eventually led.

Martinez, 30, admitted that he bought a counterfeit Mississippi drivers license in order to get a job at Bender Shipbuilding & Repair Co.
The license was genuine looking because it was produced with equipment at the Tupelo, Miss., drivers license center. Marizette-Green, who worked at the center, admitted in her written plea agreement that she made between six and 25 licenses for illegal aliens.

Investigators uncovered the operation when Martinez introduced a pair of informants to an Uzbeki man in Gulfport who drove them to Tupelo. There, according to court records, they met Marizette-Green's husband, Alfred Joseph Green. He coordinated the production of the licenses, negotiated modifications to the $2,000 price that the informants had been quoted and served as a lookout while his wife made the IDs.

U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose scheduled a hearing for Monday to take Green's guilty plea.

Marizette-Green, 37, admitted that she used a blend of real information -- such as the heights, weights and hair and eye colors of the undocumented workers -- and phony data, such as made-up home addresses.

As part of the plea bargain, prosecutors have agreed to recommend a prison term within a range set out in advisory sentencing guidelines. A preliminary calculation by the U.S. Probation Office suggests that could be a year to a year-and-a-half. Defense attorney Sid Harrell said he hopes for a sentence at the low end of that range.

DuBose set sentencing hearings for Martinez and Marizette-Green for February.

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/i ... xml&coll=3

They got off free from where I'm setting. They may get deported but I think we know what that means!

Imagine if we tried the same thing!


Schemers get time served
Pair, illegal immigrants, likely to be deported
Monday, November 05, 2007
By BRENDAN KIRBY
Staff Reporter

Two people implicated in a fake drivers license conspiracy were sentenced to time served last week, but they face almost-certain deportation to their home countries.

Davon Gayupov, a native of the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan who admitted to taking undocumented workers from Mobile to Mississippi for fake licenses, gave sworn testimony to prosecutors Friday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Mobile asked for the testimony so prosecutors will have a record they can use against Gayupov's co-defendants after he is deported.


Gayupov, who speaks six languages, originally came to the United States on a work visa. But he stayed after the visa expired and got a job painting a casino on the Mississippi coast. That's where he met Alfred Joseph Green, according to his lawyer, Arthur Madden.

Gayupov told Green that he needed an ID. Green told him that his wife, an employee at the Mississippi drivers license center in Tupelo, could help.

Gayupov paid Green $1,800 for a license and then started referring other illegal immigrants to Green and his wife, Melissa Marizette-Green, according to court records.

Green and Marizette-Green have both pleaded guilty in the case and are scheduled to be sentenced later this year.

DuBose also sentenced Baldemar Esquivel to time served Friday, ordering that he be turned over to immigration authorities. She noted that he was not involved in the sale of the licenses.

"He was simply one of the immigrants who went to Mississippi to get a driver's license. ... Although this was a serious crime, I do believe that time served is appropriate," DuBose said.

New law doesn't apply, lawyer says...

Go here for the rest of the story.

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregiste...730.xml&coll=3