A former driving school owner who was busted for bribing an RMV examiner to give driver’s licenses to people who did not pass or even take road tests has been sentenced in federal court.

Brockton man Carlos Cardoso, 72, was convicted of bribing a road test examiner at the Registry of Motor Vehicles in Brockton. He paid more than $20,000 to the RMV examiner.

Cardoso has now been sentenced by a federal judge to time served (one day in prison) to be followed by two years of supervised release — with the first six months to be spent in home incarceration. He was also ordered to pay a $5,500 fine.

Cardoso had paid cash bribes totaling more than $20,000 to the examiner at the Brockton RMV service center to “misrepresent that certain driver’s license applicants had passed their road test when, in fact, they had not,” the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office said in a statement.

“Some of the applicants did not even show up to take the test,” the feds added. “As a result of the fraud, the RMV mailed driver’s licenses to unqualified applicants.”

Cardoso was accepting payments from applicants, and “then used the funds to pay cash bribes to the Co-Conspirator in exchange for the Co-Conspirator falsely representing to the RMV that those permittees had passed their Class D road tests,” the federal indictment reads.

For instance, Cardoso took about $550 in cash from one applicant (Individual D), and then Cardoso paid about $100 to $200 to the road test examiner.

“… The Co-Conspirator falsely noted in RMV’s computer system that Individual D had taken and passed the road test,” the indictment reads. “In fact, Individual D had not taken and passed the road test.”

Cardoso pleaded guilty to one count of honest services mail fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud.

Cardoso is not the first person to be charged in connection with fraud at the Brockton RMV. In 2023, a different driving school owner was sentenced for a driver’s license bribery scheme at the RMV. The man paid the road test examiner $17,000 in bribes in exchange for fraudulent passing scores on road tests.

Also, the former manager of the Brockton RMV pleaded guilty to accepting money in exchange for agreeing to issue passing learner’s permit test scores to applicants — regardless of whether they actually passed or not.