AG: PennDot breaches safety with fake licenses

Invoking the 9/11 attacks, Pennsylvania's top prosecutor said yesterday that the state Department of Transportation had endangered public safety by issuing numerous fake driver's licenses because of lax security.

Releasing the findings of a state grand jury at a news conference here, Attorney General Tom Corbett said PennDot had put "customer service" over national security - a charge the agency disputed.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," said PennDot Deputy Secretary Kurt Myers, who oversees safety administration.

Myers said that changes recommended by the attorney general had already been implemented and others would be considered.

The Attorney General's Office said some of the recipients had "extensive and dangerous criminal histories."

Corbett, a Republican who in March filed paperwork to explore a gubernatorial bid in 2010, said PennDot had problems with systems that verified Social Security numbers and checked facial identification on license photos. In some cases, the PennDot photo system failed to detect that an applicant already had a license under another name, he said.

He said that in at least a few instances, PennDot employees were "in cahoots" with the applicants. But a big problem, he said, was pressure from the bosses to process licenses as quickly as possible.

"They were told to get them in and get them out," Corbett said, adding that Philadelphia was at the epicenter of the fake-license traffic, with up to 90 percent of the cases.

He said that his office had alerted PennDot to the problems but that the agency failed to take adequate measures lest it compromise "customer service."

Marc Costanzo, a deputy attorney general, said Harrisburg had set "wait-time goals" for license-center employees.

Corbett said that the investigation began in December 2004 and that 45 people had been arrested in the last 18 months. About half of those have been convicted in Dauphin County Court or have pleaded guilty, he said.

Yesterday, the office added Robert Banks, 33, of the 6500 block of North 20th Street, to the arrest list. He was charged with obtaining and selling fake drivers' licenses.

Officials said Banks charged $1,250 per license to clients referred to him by middlemen, who were paid $200.

The office said Banks used a process that is supposed to be available only to Pennsylvania residents who are in the military and stationed out of state.

Corbett said the investigation began after Eugene Cobbs, a drug dealer from the 6200 block of North 11th Street, crashed his plane, which was carrying 500 pounds of cocaine, in West Virginia. He fled to Pennsylvania, where he registered in a motel using a fake license issued by the commonwealth.

A probe of that incident determined that the license had been issued without a verified Social Security number.

A PennDot internal investigation found that thousands of customers were issued licenses or identification cards with unverified numbers, the Attorney General's Office said. Officials said that as many as 350,000 numbers may have been unverified.

Corbett said he had raised the PennDot matter with Homeland Security officials - "We can't go into that," he said - but had not discussed it with PennDot brass.

He said that PennDot's problems constituted a "historic lack of security."

Myers, the PennDot deputy secretary, said security improvements had been introduced after cases the agency discovered in 2002 and 2003.

Myers said the agency was committed to preventing fraud, but also wanted to make sure law-abiding citizens received convenient service.