Former PennDot worker says he was trying to help Spanish-speaking customers pass tests. Police say he committed fraud.

Police say Angelo Carrion took bribes, that he exploited Spanish-speaking people at the PennDot driver’s license centers where he worked in recent years.

Carrion, a 66-year-old U.S. Navy veteran and grandfather, said he was just trying to help.

The Lancaster resident worked as a driver’s license examiner assistant at two Lancaster County PennDot centers before he resigned in April. Pennsylvania State Police announced charges against him earlier this month.

Carrion, in an interview with The Inquirer, admitted he took money from customers to help them pass tests. Sometimes he would take customers in a room and point them toward the right answer, or give them practice tests, with answers. He admits it was a mistake, and said he plans to pay back the money.

“It was never about the money,” he told The Inquirer during an interview at 30th Street Station earlier this month.

Carrion said assistant was the most important word in that long job title and, after hearing customers saying “no comprendo” too many times, with no response from his coworkers, Carrion decided to help them. Police said that’s when Carrion’s alleged fraud began and people who had failed numerous written tests, began to pass.

In a Jan. 4 news release, state police said 268 license or identification card transactions Carrion processed between October 2021 and March 2022 had “irregularities,” including “unusual testing patterns, incomplete applications, and the absence of required documents.” He is facing multiple charges of bribery and theft. Though all of the customers Carrion dealt with were in the United States legally, police said their applications “often lacked verification of their immigration or citizenship status.”

Police said Carrion “coerced” the customers into paying him $20 to $350 for his help on the tests. Carrion told The Inquirer it amounted to $3,600, and he said he will pay it back when he pleads “no contest” in court in March. He did not have an attorney as of Wednesday.

“My goal was to even the playing field,” he said.

Carrion joined the Navy in 1974 after graduating from Central High School. He worked in mortgages and foreclosures for years, before taking a job with PennDot in September 2019. Once there, Carrion claims he often heard disparaging remarks from his colleagues about Spanish-speaking customers and said supervisors discouraged employees from being “too helpful.”

“If there was a language barrier, those people were on their own,” he said. “We were told we can’t cater to these people, or they would be coming here out of the woodwork.”

Carrion said he watched Spanish-speaking customers fail tests “over and over.” He said the tests are written in “Spain’s Spanish” and some people from Mexico or countries in South America couldn’t understand them.

“Every day, they came in and failed,” he said.

A PennDot spokesperson said Wednesday the agency cannot comment on personnel matters, pending complaints or investigations. PennDot told The Inquirer that test manuals have been available in Spanish since the mid- to late 1990s and that agency facilities offer customers live translation services for transactions.

Carrion didn’t believe any of the people he helped would be a danger on the road. He said they all drove in their native countries, or in Puerto Rico, and most simply needed transportation to work. State police said many of Carrion’s customers were retested and many did not pass.

In July 2021, PennDot Secretary Yassmin Gramian, announced that the agency’s Dismantling Systemic Racism and Inequities (DSRI) Working Group report had come up with numerous recommendations. One of them, Carrion noted, was to “analyze bilingual employee availability for customer-facing jobs.”

Carrion said he was enthused by the news but never noticed any changes. He gave The Inquirer a copy of a PennDot discrimination complaint form, dated 10-22-21, he submitted. It details numerous grievances about the treatment of Spanish-speaking customers. He said he received an acknowledgment of the complaint, but he says no action was taken.

One day, not long after he filed the complaint, Carrion said, a man offered him cash to help him pass the driver’s permit test and he thought of his own father. Angel Carrion moved to Philadelphia from Puerto Rico, Carrion said, and received help from an Italian man from South Philly he remembers only as “Mr. Romero.”

So Carrion decided to help this man.

“That person who helped my dad was an amazing man,” he said. “He helped him get a job, to drive a truck.”

Carrion said everything snowballed from there, with others coming in and seeking him out. He said not everyone he helped paid him. When asked if he offered help in exchange for money, Carrion declined to comment.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said.