by Bob Walsh
Two California DMV examiners are looking at some very serious trouble for taking bribes to get unqualified people commercial driver's licenses.
Kari Scattaglia, 40, from Sylmar, was just sentenced to 2 1/2 years federal time for conspiracy to commit bribery, identity fraud (which I assume is the federal handle here) and unauthorized computer access.
She and her co-defendant, Lisa Tarraciano, 52, of North Hollywood, altered computer records to show that applicants had taken and passed tests which they in fact never took.
Scattaglia processed at least 68 fraudulent applications. Terraciano, who has yet to be sentenced, at least 148. She could be looking at five years.
That is the problem with this scheme. You CAN NOT do this without word leaking out. Then somebody will rat you out, either because they didn't get in, or they are jealous, or angry, or something. It is just plain damn dumb. Plus you could conceivably find yourself on the hook for some level of liability if one of these bozos smashes up a few people at some point and then somebody wants to find out how a completely unqualified person got a commercial license.
I worked for six years as a license examiner with DMV and was never offered a bribe. Not once. One time a guy from Jamaica offered me a tip but it was after I had already told him he passed. I politely turned him down and notified file security of the issue, just to cover my ass, in case it was a set-up of some sort. I never heard another word about it, so I assume it wasn't.
No comments:
Post a Comment