Indian-American broker in driving license fraud gets 9 extra months in prison

indica News Bureau-

 

Los Angeles-based Indian-American broker Damanpreet Singh will have to serve an extra nine months in jail for failing to turn himself in to serve his sentence, US attorney McGregor W Scott announced Friday.

Damanpreet Singh was indicted for bribing employees of the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to alter records. The broker had pleaded guilty to the charge in March.

According to court documents, in September last year, Damanpreet Singh, 34, was sentenced to two years imprisonment for conspiring to commit bribery, identity fraud and unauthorized access of a government computer in a case that resulted in some individuals passing tests needed to obtain commercial licenses without even taking the tests.

The broker was ordered to turn himself in to begin serving his sentence on Jan 4, 2019. Rather than do so, Damanpreet Singh took steps to evade the police. He stopped answering his phones and drove a rental car to avoid detection.

When he was eventually arrested at the Burbank airport on March 13, he lied about his identity to remain out of custody.

According to court documents, between April 2016 and July 2017, Damanpreet Singh conspired with two DMV employees, Lisa Terraciano and Aaron Gilliam, who, in exchange for bribes, altered records to show that individuals had passed DMV tests needed to obtain commercial licenses.

At least 60 individuals’ DMV records were fraudulently updated. Damanpreet Singh received about $90,000 for his role in the conspiracy, some of which he paid to the corrupt DMV employees.

Terraciano and Gilliam have also pleaded guilty to the charges against them.

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