By Jay Almond, News Editor
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
July 02, 2008 08:21 am
—
Federal agents arrested a local driver’s license examiner Friday following a six-month investigation into her activities.
Susan Honeycutt, 50, a DMV driver’s license examiner since 1991, was detained at her Mt. Pleasant home by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) officers.
Honeycutt’s charges stem from allegations she knowingly arranged for and issued approximately 150 false licenses to illegal immigrants.
Those licenses, investigators said, were based on fraudulent information and non-existent addresses.
The case is being handled in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan by U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia.
The sealed complaint filed in Garcia’s office states that from around January 2007 through June 2008, Honeycutt, along with Vijendra Gangadeen, Richie Seupersad and others, knowingly agreed and conspired to commit offenses against the United States to transfer false identification to illegal immigrants.
Further, it suggests Gangadeen drove from Queens, N.Y. to North Carolina, where Honeycutt provided him with the fraudulent N.C. driver’s licenses from a DMV office.
Surveillance video set up at the local DMV office June 18 shows Seupersad arrive and enter the office with another individual.
The pair exits the office a short time later and another individual gets out of the car and goes into the office.
DMV records indicate that at about 1 p.m. and again at about 1:20 p.m. that day, Honeycutt issued two false N.C. driver’s licenses to the customers who arrived with Seupersad, both identified as illegal immigrants.
Honeycutt is not the only employee of the N.C. DMV in Stanly County, but thus far in the investigation, no other local arrests have been made.
Although neither is identified in the complaint, two other employees in the Stanly County office, Greg Honeycutt, a law enforcement officer with the DMV License and Theft Bureau, and Wendy Honeycutt, a driver’s license examiner, were placed on leave for up to 30 days with pay.
Such leaves are part of the division’s protocol during any office involved investigation, DMV officials said.
As such, either or both individuals could possibly return to duty during the allotted 30 day period.
“What we do in situations where we need to look into matters in more detail is invoke an investigatory placement,” DMV representative Margaret Howell said.
“At this point it is an investigation that has been going on for six months.
“DMV has been working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on this investigation.”
ICE and DMV internal affairs investigators may have confiscated at least one computer from the N.C. 73 office along with other evidence believed to be pertinent to the case.
The actual DMV office building is shared by the North Carolina State Highway Patrol (NCSHP), which is in no way involved with the investigation, according to DMV officials.
Jay Almond can be contacted by email at snaponline21@carolina.rr.com.
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