State Employee and Driving Instructor Charged with Driver's License Fraud
News Release from US Attorney’s Office, District of Hawaii, Thursday, November 17, 2011
HONOLULU – A federal grand jury returned an indictment yesterday charging In Chan Park, 53, of Honolulu, and Paige Teruya, 47, of Waipahu, Hawaii with fraud relating to identification documents, specifically State of Hawaii driver's licenses. According to the indictment, Park, a driving instructor, conspired with Teruya, a State of Hawaii clerk at the Dillingham office of the Honolulu Driver's License Department, to produce Hawaii driver's licenses without lawful authority. The indictment also charges both defendants with having produced Hawaii driver's licenses without lawful authority on three separate occasions.
Florence T. Nakakuni, United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii, said that according to the indictment, for a fee, Park would agree to provide Hawaii driver's licenses to foreign citizens who were not in the United States legally and who would thus not qualify for such a license. The indictment further alleges that Park provided information to Teruya, who would input it into the state system in order to produce a driver's license.
“Targeting schemes like this that enable individuals who are not in this country lawfully to obtain legitimate U.S. identity documents is a top enforcement priority for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI),” said Wayne Wills, special agent in charge for HSI in Hawaii. “This type of fraud poses a serious security vulnerability, one that often contributes to a host of other crimes – including identity theft and financial fraud. HSI is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to detect, investigate and dismantle this type of activity.”
If convicted of the charges in the indictment, Park and Teruya face a possible term of imprisonment of up to five years on the conspiracy charge and up to 15 years on the other three charges, plus possible fines of up to $250,000 and terms of supervised release of up to three years on each charge. The court set arraignment and plea for both defendants on November 22 at 1:30 p.m. before Magistrate Judge Puglisi. An indictment is only an accusation and each defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
ICE HSI investigated the case with the assistance of the Secret Service and the Honolulu Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Song is the prosecutor.
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