Former Tennessee Official and Partner Plead Responsible to Illegally Producing and Promoting ‘Lots of’ of Pretend Driver’s Licenses to Unlawful Immigrants | The Gateway Pundit

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 court docket on Thursday for his or her roles in a scheme to supply a whole lot of counterfeit Tennessee driver’s licenses and identification playing cards.

Within the Japanese District of Tennessee’s U.S. District Courtroom, 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 may obtain as much as 15 years in federal jail, a $250,000 positive, 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 accountable for the issuance of respectable driver’s licenses and identification playing cards within the Higher Knoxville space, based on 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 may get hold of 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 delivery 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 the US.

Huff knew, or intentionally ignored a excessive likelihood, that Paz-Mejia was serving to his clients get hold of 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 knowledge on the false citizenship and residency paperwork utilized by Paz-Mejia’s clients might be used to acquire a Tennessee driver’s license or identification card.

For instance, on June 23, 2021, Paz-Mejia texted Huff the identify, date of delivery, and private data used on false identification paperwork, asking Huff to “check that please.”  Huff responded, “All of these 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 had been inside, Huff initiated driver’s license functions for the shoppers utilizing TDSHS software program.  Huff additionally instructed subordinate DSC staff to finish functions and challenge driver’s licenses to a lot of Paz-Mejia’s clients.

“Abusing a position of public trust to commit any federal crime, including conspiracy to unlawfully produce false identification documents, undermines the public’s confidence in government functions and creates a serious security risk,” stated United States Lawyer for the Japanese District of Tennessee Francis M. Hamilton III.  “Our office will aggressively prosecute government employees who abuse their trusted employment positions for personal gain.”

“I am deeply disappointed in the actions of a former Tennessee Driver Services District Manager and others who betrayed the trust and tarnished the reputation of the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security,” stated Tennessee Division of Security and Homeland Safety Commissioner Jeff Lengthy.

“I want to thank the departmental employees for having the courage to alert and cooperate with the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s Criminal Investigation Division on this case involving one of their co-workers.  Our agency cooperates and works closely with federal law enforcement partners and the United States Attorney’s Office to pursue justice to the fullest extent of the law.”

This prosecution is the results of an ongoing investigation by the Tennessee Freeway Patrol’s Felony Investigation Division, the US Division of Homeland Safety’s Homeland Safety Investigations, the US Postal Inspection Service, and the US Secret Service.