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The scheme allegedly involved false scoring sheets showing a person’s CDL skills test had been given and that the person received a passing score. (Isaac Lee/Getty Images)

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Second in a series.

Federal prosecutors in New Orleans two former Office of Motor Vehicles employees, a restaurateur and a trio of third-party testers in an alleged scheme to provide commercial driver licenses to unqualified individuals.

Per a 25-page indictment filed Aug. 28 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Louisiana, the six individuals for a period that began around August 2020 and continued until February 2024 solicited and accepted bribes in exchange for providing CDLs to individuals who did not undergo “any of the legally required training or testing.”

The scheme allegedly involved creation of false scoring sheets that indicated a person’s CDL skills test had been given and that the person received a passing score. False information was also purportedly entered into a Louisiana electronic database called the Commercial Skills Test Information Management System to record skills test results.

Charged in the case are former Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles employees Jenay Davis and Shakira Millien, who allegedly completed knowledge tests for applicants in exchange for payments from Mahmoud Alhattab, a local restaurant owner. Alhattab was accused of taking money from individuals seeking to illegally obtain a CDL by bypassing the federally mandated qualification process for knowledge testing, skills testing and driver training.

In one example, around Dec. 5, 2023, an unidentified person allegedly paid the restaurateur $6,500 in cash “to begin the process of fraudulently obtaining a CDL,” according to the indictment. Alhattab allegedly gave a payer’s information to Davis and Millien, who are accused of then entering knowledge test answers and issuing commercial learner’s permits to that person. Alhattab is alleged to have paid the employees “a portion of the payment he received” from the buyer.

To defeat the training requirement, Alhattab allegedly bribed two men — Christopher Bryan Burns and Jonathan Parsons — who operated a third-party testing business and an entry-level driver training program.

Burns and Parsons are accused of falsely reporting in a federal database that applicants successfully completed training. They also allegedly falsified reporting to the state of Louisiana that applicants had passed the skills test.

Parsons is also accused of paying skills test examiner Marline Roberts for assisting the scheme by allegedly creating phony score sheets to corroborate false test reports.

All six defendants are jointly charged with one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud. Court actions are scheduled for 2026, with a pretrial conference slated for Feb. 12.

Included in prosecutors’ evidence are text messages with promises of payments of $400 to falsely report a person passed a skills test.

In the indictment:

• Alhattab and Parsons are each charged with two counts of honest services wire fraud.
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• Burns, Davis and Roberts are each charged with one count of honest services wire fraud.
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• Alhattab, Millien and Parsons are each charged with four counts of bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds.
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• Burns, Davis and Roberts are each charged with one count of bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds.

The conspiracy and wire fraud counts are each punishable by up to 20 years’ imprisonment. Bribery counts are each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

No specific numbers were provided in the indictment regarding how many CDLs were issued through the scheme. When asked by Transport Topics for figures, Shane Jones, a spokesperson for the Louisiana U.S. Attorney’s office, said, “Our office has no additional information to add beyond the filed indictment.”

This case is one in a string of prosecutions states have launched in recent months to punish with the full weight of the law small local rings of people accused of breaking the law to give unqualified drivers CDLs and commercial learner’s permits.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General, the Louisiana State Office of Inspector General and the Louisiana Department of Public Safety Services.

This is the second in a series of articles highlighting enforcement efforts to prosecute fraud in issuance of commercial driver licenses.