A Knoxville couple admitted to conspiring to create unlawful identification paperwork.
Cheryl Huff, 49, and Mario Paz-Mejia, 50, entered responsible pleas within the federal courtroom on Thursday for his or her roles in a scheme to provide tons of of Tennessee driver’s licenses and identification playing cards.
Within the Japanese District of Tennessee’s U.S. District Court docket, Cheryl Huff and Mario Paz-Mejia confronted authorized repercussions below Choose Katherine A. Crytzer.
Sentencing is scheduled for Could 24, 2024, the place every particular person might obtain as much as 15 years in federal jail, a $250,000 tremendous, and three years of supervised launch.
Cheryl Huff served because the District Supervisor for the Tennessee Division of Security and Homeland Safety (TDSHS). In her place, she was liable for the issuance of respectable driver’s licenses and identification playing cards within the Larger Knoxville space, in accordance with the Department of Justice (DOJ) information launch.
Mario Paz-Mejia performed the middleman function by soliciting people, primarily non-citizens and non-Tennessee residents, providing them unlawful entry to Tennessee documentation for a hefty sum of $2,500.
Extra from the DOJ:
Utilizing his affiliation with Huff, Paz-Mejia represented to his clients that, in return for $2,500, Paz-Mejia might acquire for them a Tennessee driver’s license or identification card.
Paz-Mejia additionally assisted his clients in acquiring false citizenship and residency paperwork—two necessities to acquire a Tennessee driver’s license—together with fraudulent lease agreements to determine proof of Tennessee residency, and false start certificates, Social Safety playing cards, and driver’s licenses from different states and U.S. territories to determine proof of citizenship or authorized residency in america.
Huff knew, or intentionally ignored a excessive likelihood, that Paz-Mejia was serving to his clients acquire false citizenship and residency paperwork and that Paz-Mejia charged his clients cash to acquire a Tennessee driver’s license or identification card.
Huff used her entry to TDSHS’s inner software program to verify that the names and data on the false citizenship and residency paperwork utilized by Paz-Mejia’s clients may very well be used to acquire a Tennessee driver’s license or identification card.
For instance, on June 23, 2021, Paz-Mejia texted Huff the title, date of start, and private info used on false identification paperwork, asking Huff to “verify that please.” Huff responded, “All of those usually are not on file. They’re good.”
After Paz-Mejia’s clients acquired false citizenship and residency paperwork, Paz-Mejia organized to satisfy them at a Knoxville-area DSC earlier than enterprise hours. With Huff’s help, Paz-Mejia escorted his clients into DSCs earlier than enterprise hours, together with by means of a backdoor employee-only entrance.
As soon as Paz-Mejia and his clients have been inside, Huff initiated driver’s license purposes for the purchasers utilizing TDSHS software program. Huff additionally instructed subordinate DSC staff to finish purposes and subject driver’s licenses to lots of Paz-Mejia’s clients.
“Abusing a place of public belief to commit any federal crime, together with conspiracy to unlawfully produce false identification paperwork, undermines the general public’s confidence in authorities capabilities and creates a severe safety danger,” mentioned United States Lawyer for the Japanese District of Tennessee Francis M. Hamilton III. “Our workplace will aggressively prosecute authorities staff who abuse their trusted employment positions for private acquire.”
“I’m deeply disenchanted within the actions of a former Tennessee Driver Companies District Supervisor and others who betrayed the belief and tarnished the status of the Tennessee Division of Security and Homeland Safety,” mentioned Tennessee Division of Security and Homeland Safety Commissioner Jeff Lengthy.
“I wish to thank the departmental staff for having the braveness to alert and cooperate with the Tennessee Freeway Patrol’s Prison Investigation Division on this case involving one among their co-workers. Our company cooperates and works intently with federal regulation enforcement companions and america Lawyer’s Workplace to pursue justice to the fullest extent of the regulation.”
This prosecution is the results of an ongoing investigation by the Tennessee Freeway Patrol’s Prison Investigation Division, america Division of Homeland Safety’s Homeland Safety Investigations, america Postal Inspection Service, and america Secret Service.