{"id":16693,"date":"2015-10-21T18:07:12","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T01:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=16693"},"modified":"2015-10-21T18:07:12","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T01:07:12","slug":"six-indicted-for-allegedly-using-puerto-rican-birth-certificates-to-create-phony-dmv-ids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=16693","title":{"rendered":"Six Indicted for Allegedly Using Puerto Rican Birth Certificates to Create Phony DMV IDs"},"content":{"rendered":"

SANTA ANA, CALIF.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\"u.s.DISTRICT<\/a>A grand jury indicted a clerk at the California Department of Motor Vehicles office in El Monte and five others on federal identity theft charges for allegedly using legitimate birth certificates and Social Security numbers obtained from Puerto Rico to create new identities.<\/p>\n

Those IDS \u00a0were sold to people willing to pay thousands of dollars for fraudulent identity documents, officials said today.<\/p>\n

DMV clerk Tracey Lynette Jones,<\/strong> 33, of Long Beach, surrendered to federal authorities on Monday. She was arraigned and plead not guilty. She was released on a $25,000 bond.<\/p>\n

Jones and the other five defendants were named in a four-count indictment returned on Sept. 30 by a federal grand jury.<\/p>\n

The indictment charges all six defendants with conspiring to produce identification documents. Several of the defendants, including Jones, are charged with various identity theft offenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdentity theft is a serious crime that undermines the economic fabric of our society and causes considerable harm to the individual victims,\u201d said U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker.<\/strong> \u201cThis identity theft scheme was particularly insidious because it both victimized the individuals whose identities were stolen and required the active participation of a government official. The fact that a DMV official abused her position of authority in committing this crime is egregious since such conduct can undermine the public\u2019s confidence in a government institution entrusted with our personal information.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Four of the remaining defendants were arrested last month by special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE, \u00a0Homeland Security Investigations \u00a0or HSI and investigators with the DMV\u2019s Investigations division.<\/p>\n

They are:<\/p>\n