BOSTON - A Chelsea man was sentenced today in connection with a scheme to produce fraudulent identification documents.
Edwin Amaurys Parra Suarez, 38, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to seven months in custody (time served) and two years of supervised release. In June, Parra pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to produce false identification documents.
From December 2012 through December 2013, Parra bribed a corrupt Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) clerk to issue Massachusetts driver’s licenses to individuals who were not eligible to receive them. Acting as a broker, Parra sent his purported clients to the Revere RMV to submit their application materials to the corrupt clerk. In exchange for payment ranging from $100 to $1,000 from Parra, the clerk agreed to overlook the fact that the clients lacked the necessary immigration documents to qualify for a Massachusetts driver’s license. During the course of the scheme, Parra and his co-conspirators produced more than two dozen Massachusetts driver’s licenses in this way.
This case is the most recent development in a series of investigations involving identity theft and public corruption at the Massachusestts RMV. An RMV clerk, Alexander Brewer, was sentenced in April 2014 to two years of probation, and he voluntarily forfeited the $60,000 he fraudulently obtained to produce fake licenses. Another co-conspirator of Brewer’s, Leonel Sanchez, was sentenced in January 2015 to 26 months in prison after pleading guilty to aggravated identity theft.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Matthew Etre, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston; Colonel Richard D. McKeon, Superintendent of the Massachusetts States Police; David W. Hall, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Boston Field Office; and Cheryl Garcia, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations, New York Regional Office, made the announcement today. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugenia M. Carris of Ortiz’s Public Corruption Unit.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
