Massachusetts driving school owner busted for allegedly bribing Brockton RMV road test examiner
A local driving school owner has been arrested for allegedly bribing a Brockton RMV road test examiner to give driver’s licenses to people who did not pass or even take road tests.
Brockton man Carlos Cardoso, 70 — the owner and president of a Brockton driving school — is accused of paying tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to a road test examiner.
Cardoso has been federally indicted by a Boston grand jury on five counts of honest services mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud, the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office announced on Friday.
The driving school owner allegedly paid $20,000 to $30,000 in total cash bribes to the examiner. In return, the road test examiner would lie to the RMV and issue driver’s licenses to applicants who had not passed their road tests.
Some of the applicants did not even show up to take the test, according to the feds. As a result of the alleged fraud, the RMV mailed driver’s licenses to unqualified applicants.
Cardoso was allegedly 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 allegedly 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 is not the first person to be charged in connection with fraud at the Brockton RMV. Last year, 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.