Bribes bought IDs for immigrants

By Guillermo Contreras Updated 7:52 pm, Monday, September 12, 2016

A San Antonio man pleaded guilty Monday to charges that he bribed a former Texas Department of Public Safety employee to get driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Azeez Mistry, 45, would charge between $1,000 to $5,000 to immigrants for the licenses, but he paid an average of $700 per license, bribing Jose A. Ytuarte, 54, who worked as a DPS customer service representative in Hondo, according to court records and statements in court.

The total that immigrants paid Mistry between May 2013 and July 2015 didn’t exceed $40,000, court records said.

As part of a plea deal, Mistry pleaded guilty to a single count of use of a facility of interstate commerce with the intent to carry out unlawful activity-bribery. Other charges are to be dismissed when he’s sentenced Dec. 7 by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez.

Rodriguez sentenced Ytuarte last week to 18 months in federal prison for his role.

The FBI and DPS investigated the case after the FBI received a tip, Mistry’s plea deal shows. And, according to statements from a prosecutor in court Monday, it appears the agencies still don’t know the full names of all the immigrants who got the licenses.

In Texas, foreigners — such as those with visas — can get a driver’s license only for the period of their authorized stay and must show proof of their lawful immigration status, the plea deal said. When an immigrant applies for a license, DPS runs a check with the U.S. Homeland Security Department to verify the legal status.

Ytuarte bypassed the system by fraudulently documenting that the immigrants had U.S. birth certificates, Mistry’s plea deal said.
“They would wait until lunch to conduct the transactions so that other DPS clerks would be away,” Mistry’s plea deal said.

When U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo pressed for details, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christina Playton said that on one occasion, in February 2014, Mistry took an immigrant from India, who had paid him $3,000, to the Hondo DPS office and Ytuarte entered fraudulent information that enabled the immigrant to receive a license through the mail.

The immigrant was identified only as Asad Ali, but the first name was unknown, according to information Playton read into the record.
Mistry’s lawyer, Albert Flores, declined comment other than to stress that the case has no ties to terrorism. Court records show agents jumped on this case and a similar one to make sure no one with terrorism ties got driver’s licenses.

In the other case, Linda Ann Perez, a clerk at the DPS office on South Gen. McMullen Drive on San Antonio’s West Side, was sentenced in July to 47 months in prison for taking $215,000 in bribes in exchange for entering fraudulent information into DPS computers so undocumented immigrants could get driver’s licenses.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc...-s-9218205.php