TRENTON – The sale of illegal driver’s licenses has led to indictments against 40 people, including six former clerks at the Motor Vehicles Commission, the state announced.
Attorney General Paula Dow and other state officials said in a release that 21 customers and 13 brokers also were among those facing charges, including conspiracy, official misconduct, computer criminal activity, tampering with public records, and more.
The state said that the phony licenses were sold to people who did not have the required six points of identification.
In some cases, the customers did not qualify for a license because they were in the country illegally, Dow’s office stated.
The cases involve MVC clerks at the Lodi, East Orange, Edison, Jersey City and North Bergen motor vehicle agencies. In the Edison case, a clerk pleaded guilty prior to being indicted, Dow’s office reported.
The state reported that in the next few weeks, the MVC will begin the first phase of the roll-out of its Facial Recognition program with a briefing to representatives of the New Jersey law enforcement community. The program will use biometric technology to “scrub” the 17 million digital images in the NJ MVC database to detect licenses that have been obtained with fraudulent identities.
