Maritza De Leon, a long-time Texas Department of Public Safety employee, took $10,000 to help a man posing as a Mexican drug cartel leader get a driver license.Turns out, the man was an FBI informant and helped police bust a driver license selling ring, The Monitor reported Friday. Last week in McAllen, De Leon, who told a judge she had sold fake driver licenses at least 15 times since 2003, was sentenced to 60 days in prison and two years of probation. To the judge's frustration, federal sentencing guidelines for most of the ring members call for less than 6 months behind bars.
Um, why couldn't the feds hand these guys off to the state authorities?
By the way, selling a single fake driver's license in and of itself probably should be a 6-month-or-less misdemeanor.
However, selling a fake driver's license to someone who you know will abuse it in a certain way should have a penalty that tracks the likely abuse. If you sell one to a 20 year old who is likely to use it to buy alcohol, the penalty should be up to 6 months in prison plus civil liability for any alcohol-related crime he commits before age 21. If he sells one to a 20 year old KNOWING the guy will buy alcohol he should get the same penalty as a person who buys alcohol for a minor.
If you knowingly sell a driver's license to a drug lord, you should share liability for any crimes the drug lord commits that he used the license for. Of course, in the case of a sting, that number is zero, so you would be left with the original misdemeanor sentence and be able to thank your lucky stars you got caught early.
Posted by: davidwr | July 25, 2011 at 09:57 AM
Is that all? Well I guess more people will be selling fake drivers license.
Posted by: yakami | July 25, 2011 at 06:03 PM
Maritza De Leon? Imagine that.
Posted by: SuperiorPoliticsDotCom | July 25, 2011 at 07:41 PM
I almost agree with the above statement. I think selling a FAKE drivers license should be a felony. KNOWINGLY selling one should be seen as an act of terrorism. ANYONE WHO WOULD BE TRYING TO BUY A FAKE ID HAS NO INTENTION OF DOING GOOD.
The only stipulation should be for people needing a fake id to get away from an abusive ex or other life threatening situations.
Posted by: opinionated | July 26, 2011 at 06:11 AM
Unbelievable! A drivers license is not just an ID card....it certifies that this person has passed a drivers exam and should be safe to drive on public roads. A person selling one to a purported drug cartel member should have been charged with criminal conspiracy. This sentence is outrageous and action should be taken by the legislature to make sure that DPS workers know that the penalty for doing this is high....a minimum of 10 years in prison.
Posted by: J Cox | July 26, 2011 at 10:18 AM
Sixty days? Boy we showed her! She'll never cross the line again. Crime as we know it is over due to the fear of punishment.....
Posted by: Steven Baker | July 26, 2011 at 10:25 AM