A Department of Motor Vehicles employee who used to work in the Westminster office was arrested and charged Thursday with accepting bribes from customers in exchange for providing them California drivers licenses.
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Jose Alberto Carrillo, 47, of Fresno, is scheduled to be arraigned April 20 at the North Justice Center in Fullerton on two felony counts of altering public documents and two felony counts of computer access and fraud. Currently out of custody after posting $20,000 bail, Carrillo could get up to five years in jail if convicted, according to the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA).
While a motor vehicle representative at the Westminster DMV office on May 10, 2012, Carrillo allegedly offered to alter a customer's DMV record to show he'd passed a written driving test that he had previously failed in exchange for $100.
“Carrillo is accused of instructing the customer to go to the men's bathroom to hide the money in between papers to avoid video surveillance,” reads the OCDA arraignment statement. “When the customer returned from the bathroom, the defendant is accused of accepting the money that was hidden between the papers. Carrillo is accused of unlawfully accessing the man's DMV record on the computer and falsely inputting that the customer had passed the written tests.”
On June 4, 2012, Carrillo is accused of illegally accessing another customer's DMV record after business hours and entering false information that the customer had provided a U.S. birth certificate as proof of presence, according to prosecutors, who allege Carrillo received $500 in exchange.
The customer who made the payoff after leaving the restroom received an interim license, the other customer got a permanent one, but neither could have unless their DMV records were altered, the OCDA claims. The DMV Investigations Division sprang into action after the man issued an interim license came to the Westminster office to complain that he had not received his permanent license as promised, according to the OCDA.
Carrillo was arrested Thursday in Fresno.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.