Federal investigation busts Salinas DMV employees for taking bribes

UPDATE 10:25pm: News Channel 5 spoke with trucking school owner Mangal Gill. He owns the Salinas Valley Truck Driving School and was named in the indictment Tuesday.He wouldn’t comment further on what we already know but hedid say that the school is still open.

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Tuesday the U.S. Attorney’s Office revealed an investigation and indictment involving a four-year bribery scheme by employees of the California DMV and owners of trucking school companies to issue licenses to people who never took the Class A commercial driver’s test. Two employees were from Salinas and one trucking school operated out of Salinas.

Tuesday a DMV employee and a trucking school owner pleaded guilty for their role in a conspiracy to sell Class A commercial driver’s licenses without the buyer having to taken or passed the required tests.

Court documents indicate that more than 100 licenses may have been issued as a result of the scheme.

45-year old Emma Klem of Salinas, a DMV employee who worked in a Salinas DMV branch, and trucking school owner Kulwinder Dosanjh Singh, aka Sodhi Singh of Turlock, were charged earlier in separate criminal pleadings and entered guilty pleas to conspiracy to commit bribery and to commit identity fraud.

Four more people, including two other DMV employees, were charged in a 17?count indictment unsealed Friday.

According to court documents, between June 2011 and March 2015, three owners of truck driving schools acted as brokers who accepted money from individuals who wanted a license without having to take and pass the required written and behind-the-wheel driving tests.

The brokers used the money to bribe DMV employees to enter false information into the computer database causing a license to be issued to those who never took the test.

The indictment includes trucking school owners Pavitar Dosangh Singh, aka Peter Singh of Sacramento and Mangal Gill of San Ramon; it also names DMV examiners Andrew Kimura of Sacramento and Robert Turchin of Salinas.

All are charged with with conspiracy, bribery, and fraud in connection with identification documents. The indictment specifically references the involvement of Salinas-based employee Emma Klem. Part of Klem’s job duties included processing applications for Class A, Class B, and Class C licenses.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles says it has cancelled or revoked a number of licenses that investigators believe were tied to the fraud.

“These investigations and the criminal charges they produced send a very clear and loud message that the Department of Motor Vehicles takes fraud and illegal activity very seriously, and it is absolutely not tolerated,” stated Frank Alvarez, Chief Investigator, California Department of Motor Vehicles.

The FBI and Homeland Security worked with DMV in the investigation that lasted several years.

“This scheme enabled unqualified drivers to obtain licenses to operate all types of commercial vehicles,” said Tatum King, acting special agent in charge for HSI San Francisco. “The implications of putting untrained drivers behind the wheel in such cases is frankly chilling.”

In order to obtain a Class A license to operate a commercial truck like an 18-wheeler applicants must pass both a written test and a behind-the-wheel test that is offered in a limited number of DMV locations including Salinas.

The indictment explains there were three different conspiracies.

The first began in around June 2011 and involved Andrew Kimura, Peter Singh, and Mangal Gill, who conspired with Klem and Sodhi Singh. Investigators say Kimura was a Licensing Registration Examiner in Sacramento. He processed applications for Class A and Class B commercial and Class C non?commercial driver’s licenses. Peter Singh owned and operated a truck driving school in Sacramento and acted as a broker to help get people Class A, Class B, and Class C driver’s licenses without taking the test.

Mangal Gill owned and operated trucking schools in Fremont, Lathrop, Fresno, and Salinas also acted as a broker.

The second alleged conspiracy to commit bribery and ID fraud was from July 2012 to April 2015 and involved Mangal Gill, Emma Klem, and the other Salinas DMV employee Robert Turchin, who was a Licensing-Registration Examiner.

Investigators say Gill acted as a broker and paid Turchin and Klem and other DMV employees to alter DMV records for Class A and B licenses.

According to the indictment, the third conspiracy began in April 2013 and continued until July 2015 in Sacramento. It is alleged that Peter Singh paid money to Kimura to access the DMV’s computer database and alter individuals’ electronic DMV records to fraudulently and incorrectly indicate that applicants had passed examinations for Class C licenses, had passed the written examination for Class A, or had fulfilled the requirements for a Class A or Class B renewal.

As part of the guilty pleas entered Tuesday morning, Sodhi Singh admitted accepting money to bribe DMV employees, and DMV employee Emma Klem admitted changing DMV data to indicate that drivers had passed behind-the-wheel tests, when in fact they had never appeared to take the test.

Emma Klem and Sodhi Singh are scheduled to be sentenced on November 17, 2015. They face a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.

Peter Singh and Andrew Kimura were arraigned on August 7, 2015, and entered pleas of not guilty.

Robert Turchin and Mangal Gill are scheduled to be arraigned on Friday, August 14, 2015. If convicted, the defendants face a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.