Donuts and cut-rate car repairs were all it took for the manager of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office in Leesburg to threaten national security by handing out driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, federal prosecutors say.
Sally Lynn Craig, 42, was fired by the DMV in June when federal officials charged her with two counts of identification fraud, said DMV spokeswoman Melanie Stokes. The department has been cracking down on fraud, and Craig’s handing out of licenses to two illegal immigrants was caught by an internal investigator, Stokes said.
Craig was hired by the DMV in 1999 and promoted to manager of the Leesburg office in November 2006. Once there, authorities say, she met Rodrigo Guevara, an area mechanic, who often stopped by the office in the morning with donuts and pastries for the employees. Sometimes, Guevara told investigators, he’d give DMV employees, including Craig, “breaks” on car repairs, court records said.
On Nov. 2, Guevara brought a friend — described only as “E.R.” in court documents — to the office. E.R. was an illegal immigrant and Guevara knew he couldn’t legally procure a driver’s license, court records said.
But he asked Craig if she would do him a favor, and she agreed and then cleared the paperwork over the protests of a teller. E.R. left the office with a license in hand.
Less than two weeks later, Guevara brought his brother to the office, once again seeking a driver’s license. The unnamed brother failed the written test and applied for a Virginia identification card instead. Craig once again overrode a teller’s protests and cleared the state ID without documents verifying the brother’s legal status in the United States.
The brother was later able to use that identification to acquire a learner’s permit and then a driver’s license, court records said.
Guevara, who also was in the country illegally and acquired his Virginia driver’s license by listing the Social Security number of another person on his application, has already pleaded guilty. Craig is still awaiting a formal indictment.
In response to cases like these and the federal REAL ID Act, Virginia has plans to centralize its license printing and clearance in Danville by summer 2009, Stokes said. Once this is completed, residents will no longer be able to acquire a license the same day they apply and there “will be fewer chances for fraud,” she said.
