The RMV employee was sentenced to two years probation in April 2014
Edwin Amaurys Parra Suarez, 38, of Chelsea appeared in U.S. District Court last week for his part in orchestrating a scheme to obtain fraudulent drivers’ licenses. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to produce false identification documents and is scheduled to be sentenced on September 9, 2015.
According to authorities, from December 2011 through December 2012, Mr. Parra Suarez orchestrated and engaged in a conspiracy to obtain legal Massachusetts drivers licenses to false applicants by applying for drivers licenses at the Revere RMV branch. Mr. Parra Suarez bribed Alexander Brewer, a clerk at the Revere branch of the RMV, to issue legal Massachusetts drivers’ licenses to individuals who were not eligible to receive them. In exchange for issuing these fraudulent licenses, Mr. Brewer received payments from Mr. Parra Suarez ranging from $100 – $1000. In total, Mr. Brewer accrued over $60,000 in illicit payments from Mr. Parra Suarez for this scheme.
For his part, Mr. Parra Suarez, then acting as a broker, sent his purported clients to Mr. Brewer at the Revere RMV branch in order to submit their false applications materials and received a valid Massachusetts drivers’ license. The scheme resulted in at least 29 individuals receiving a valid Massachusetts driver’s licenses via fraudulent documents.
Mr. Parra Suarez appearance in court marks the third person implicated in a series of investigations into identity theft and public corruption at the RMV. Aside from Mr. Brewer who was sentenced in April 2014 to two years probation and Mr. Parra Suarez who will be sentenced this September, another RMV clerk, Leonel Sanchez, was also sentenced in January 2015 to 16 months in prison in response to pleading guilty to aggravated identity theft.
In response to his guilty plea, Mr. Parra Suarez, the charging statute for his crime provides for a sentence of no greater than five years in prison, three years of supervised released as well as a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is the greater. Restitution and forfeiture are also included in the charging statute.