UT: Fake driver license for cash scheme revealed
Fake driver license for cash scheme revealed
Updated: 9/01 10:47 pm | Published: 9/01 10:40 pm
Reported by: Robert Maxwell
SALT LAKE COUNTY (ABC 4) -- A Kearns woman is facing felony charges of accepting bribes in her former job at the Utah state Driver License Division. The District Attorney's office alleges 47 year-old Elevia Nez would create fake IDs inside the office located inside the Utah State Fairpark. Her customers were people who would pay a middleman $15-hundred and some of that would allegedly filter down to Nez.
ABC 4 knocked on Nez's door Thursday evening. A man identifying himself as her 20 year-old son said his mom was out of town. He had not heard of the charges filed against her, but acknowleged Nez had left her job at the DLD "sometime last year."
County DA Sim Gill tells ABC 4 the mother of three would allegedly allow her "special customers" at the Driver License Division to slip past the numbered ticket system and the lines of people. She would then call them by name, instead of number to collect their fake, state-issued ID...for a price.
Gill tells ABC 4, "This is the co participant, (who's) getting paid $150 for facilitating this kind of document fraud."
Nez was caught, a probable cause statement alleges when one of the men she provided a fake ID for snitched on her after he and three others were caught after a traffic stop in Kansas. None of the men's true identities matched the names on their Utah driver licenses.
Nez told investigators she provided 50 or more fake driver licenses between 2008 and 2009 before new rules were put in place where state workers had to scan documents of those applying for a license. That's when she says she stopped. In the past year or so, the Utah Division of Driver Licenses further tightened rules for applicants, accepting only original birth certificates as well as other changes.
The middleman is named in court documents as Pablino Gomez-Plancarte.
At the time this post was written, no one from the DMV nor its agencies were available for comment.
Nez has not been arrested and is being summoned to appear in November to answer to the four felony counts against her.
www.abc4.com
