Three state Department of Motor Vehicles representatives, the sister of one of the employees, and three others. were indicted for their alleged roles in a scheme to cheat on commercial driver’s license exams and process permits for no-show applicants, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly and state Inspector General Lucy Lang announced on Thursday, Oct. 9.
Former DMV Supervisor Kanaisha Middleton, her sister Jamie Middleton, and DMV representatives Tawanna Whitfield and Satoya Mitchell, were arraigned on charges of impairing the integrity of a government licensing examination, corrupting the government, tampering with public records and two counts of falsifying business records
Commercial learner’s permit applicants James Nurse, Omesh Mohan and Rene Sarduy were also charged in the indictment with tampering with public records and falsifying business records.
If convicted, all seven individuals face a maximum sentence of 2 1/3 to seven years in prison. They are all due back in court in November.
According to the indictment and investigation, the allegations were first reported to the state Inspector General’s Office from a supervisor in the Garden City branch of the DMV who reported that employees were processing Commercial Drivers License permit applications without applicants sitting for the required tests at the DMV location, Donnelly said.
To obtain a CDL permit, applicants must provide a government-issued identification as well as proof of legal status in the U.S.
Representatives then verify that an applicant is who they claim to be before assigning them to a testing station to take a Commercial Driver’s License permit exam.
If an applicant passes the exam, they can obtain their permit on the same day by seeing a motor vehicle representative with their identification and a completed MV44 form.
Surveillance video obtained from the DMV showed on six separate dates between March 2023 and September 2023, Jamie Middleton approached DMV employees dressed in various disguises, wearing baggy clothing, facemasks, construction jackets and fake facial hair, and purported to be different Commercial Driver’s License and class “D” permit applicants seeking to take the exams, the DA said.
“Her nails gave it away,” Donnelly said during the announcement on Thursday, Oct. 9.
On each of the dates, Middleton was given access to the testing room by Whitfield and Mitchell, despite Middleton’s appearance not matching the identification and DMV records for the applicants for whom she was posing, Donnelly said.
Middleton administered exams to two applicants on one occasion: Sarduy, a Town of Hempstead Department of Highway employee, and Omesh Mohan, who were less than five minutes apart and wearing the exact same clothing, according to the DA.
Mohan and Sarduy allegedly both went to different DMV locations in Springfield Gardens and Bethpage in the following days to provide their paperwork and obtain their interim permits, Donnelly said. Neither person was ever issued a full license and the investigation found that Mohan had failed the Commercial Driver’s License road test.
Jamie Middleton allegedly took nine Commercial Driver’s License exams in this period and passed the test eight times for seven applicants. Six of those applicants were never issued full Commercial Driver’s Licenses. She said that Middleton was paid $1,500 to $3,000 for each test.
James Nurse, a Town of Hempstead Sanitation employee, received an interim permit on Aug. 16, 2023, at the Massapequa branch of the DMV after Jamie Middleton allegedly took his exam two days before in Garden City.
Nurse was issued a full Commercial Driver’s License on Sept. 28, 2023, and the investigation revealed that he later used his illegally obtained license to drive recycling trucks for the town’s sanitation department.
“This scheme was an unbelievable, organized breach of public trust and the trust of millions of drivers using Long Island’s roads,” Donnelly said.
Lang said this marks the second corruption scheme her office has uncovered this year, with the other occurring in Staten Island.
