February 28, 2007
Final Sentencing in CT Illegal Immigrant Driver's License Scam
In June of 2006, a handful of Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles employees were arrested in a scam operation where the employees sold driver's licences to illegal immigrants through middlemen. Yesterday, the final sentence in the case was handed down:
Karin Birch, 34, of Stratford, was the sixth and final Bridgeport DMV worker to be sentenced in the scam.
The alleged ringleaders of the scheme, Venita Bines, of Bridgeport, and Tracy Stevenson-Lucas, of Stratford, are serving 7-year sentences.
Authorities said the defendants sold more than 1,500 licenses and nearly 1,000 Connecticut identification cards between June 2000 and December 2004. The state has recovered only a small portion of the licenses.
Police said DMV workers charged up to $2,000 a license and used middlemen, including members of the Hell's Angels Motor Cycle Club and exotic dancers, to sell them. The middlemen would arrange to meet buyers at restaurants and in parking lots around the city where phony licenses would be exchanged for cash.
Cases like this illustrate the growing need to put the illegal immigration controversy to bed. In addition to the toll on our social and economic resources and human traffickers making a killing smuggling people in over the border (sometimes causing deaths in the process), state employees are now tempted to make illicit money off of a group of people who, because of their fear of police, would not complain about being charged thousands for fake ID.
Secure the borders first. Then figure out what to do with the people already here.
Illegals willing to pay thousands for one
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