A New Defense for Scammers
Earlier this month, FBI agents raided the Georgetown branch of the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles and arrested five people allegedly selling fake licenses.
"Everything that we do has a black market," DMV Director Lucinda M. Babers said at an afternoon press conference. "There are people that are perhaps approaching our employees on a daily basis to see if they can entice them."
What repercussions could result from this bust? The DMVs are probably monitoring their employees a little more closely. And perhaps there's a vacuum in the fraudulent identification world currently being filled by new scam artists. But, here's one after-effect I didn't see coming: suspects charged with fraud are using the Georgetown DMV story as a possible defense.
Well, at least one is. Last Friday, I happened to be in Judge Rafael Diaz's courtroom when defendant Yvette Scott's case was called. Last October, Scott visited the Southwest M Street DMV with a phony driver's license she was trying turn into a real one (she wanted to "renew" it).
Apparently, the I.D. wasn't just a fake–it was a really bad fake. The officer who wrote up the police report said he could tell it was false the moment he looked at it: "The name printed on the license was typed on the outside of the [lamination]. The font used by [the] DMV was different from the font used on the fake driver's license." There are other details, but you get the point.
Scott didn't fess up though. She just told the officer she got the license at the DMV's Brentwood branch in Northeast. Then, the officer told her he was going to arrest her.
In Diaz's courtroom last week, Scott still wasn't straying from her position. But, this time, she let her lawyer, Frederick Iverson, do most of the talking. He told Diaz he believed there was a "pattern" going on in the DMV system and the Brentwood location was possibly inflicted with the same problems as the Georgetown branch. Iverson asked for a continuance to look into this potential DMV debacle. Scott will be back in court on April 17.
4:39 pm
I was actually a test tube baby but managed to get my hands on an actual birth certificate.
9:19 pm
Rees lied about being married. About the number of children he has. About his employment status. About his address. About his real name. About his family's business dealings. About his run-ins with the law. And the photos of the alleged writers on his blog are all stolen from other websites.
Thank you.
9:24 pm
AND the unflattering results of his court-ordered psychiatric exam. AND his multiple alias postings on local yahoo groups, DCist, Washington Post blogs, DCpages, Craigslist, etc.
And a certain incident in Texas. AND a little situation with the MPD...particularly the Latino Liaison officers.
11:47 pm
The person posting about is clearly a whacko as everybody in DC knows Valencia Mohammed as writer for the Afro-American newspaper and activist, Manny who owns several businesses in the Hispanic community, Paulie Russo who is local stock broker with TD Waterhouse and how is it that Rees is stealing pictures of others without their knowing it?
Please dude, you need some help.
12:20 am
Here we go again with Rees bashing.
Can't you basher get a life?
12:31 am
A pictures of HIS FORMER NEIGHBOR http://tinyurl.com/2g4plf
7:42 am
It is nice to see that - his former neighbor - is back as I was afraid he didn't love me any longer, but I notice he is off his medication again and ranting.