This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
While the federal government cracks down on illegal aliens who obtained commercial driver's licenses from California, the state of New York has its own scandal where employees of the Department of Motor Vehicles were allegedly getting paid to take the written driving tests on behalf of trucker-wannabes.
Seven people, including DMV employees, have been charged with 51 felony counts by the Nassau County District Attorney's Office on Long Island.
"Bypassing that safeguard is far from a harmless shortcut, it is a dangerous threat to public safety," said New York Inspector General Lucy Lang last month.
WABC-TV reported: "Among those charged include Kanaisha Middleton, a supervisor at the Garden City branch of the DMV, as well as her sister, Jamie Middleton, who is accused of taking at least 10 different permit tests for no-show drivers.
"Surveillance images show Jamie Middleton wearing different disguises, even fake facial hair as she posed as a man who would be applying for a commercial driving permit, but she forgot to take off her fake nails."
"We think it's pretty, pretty poor. The finger nails kind of gave it away," Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said.
"She's in disguise, coming in different clothing and even going so far as to wear fake mustaches, beards, glasses, masks – almost like a spy in an espionage thriller,"
according to the New York Post.
"These disguises were all about selling the scheme for the cameras," she said. "[The real applicants] never set foot in the Garden City DMV, never clicked a single button to take the required test."
Authorities say the defendants charged up to $3,000 per test, with two of the accused working the DMV counters so they could wave through the phony test taker.
Donnelly said Middleton sat for at least 10 tests, despite looking nothing like the applicants.
"One day, she actually sat twice. Came out, went back to the counter, and back in five minutes later," Donnelly said.
Charges include impairing the integrity of a government licensing examination, tampering with public records, corrupting the government and falsifying business records.
If found guilty, the accused face a maximum sentence of 2.5 to 7 years in prison.
As WorldNetDaily reported last week, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation revealed California has issued 17,000 commercial licenses to "dangerous" foreign-born truck drivers.
"After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday.
"Now that we've exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked."
"This is just the tip of the iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semitrucks and school buses."
