California DMV employee pleads guilty in license scam. Feds say he was paid off

A former California DMV employee in the San Joaquin Valley pleaded guilty to producing illegal truck driver’s licenses.

Ulises Pena, who used to work at a Department of Motor Vehicle location in Bakersfield, accepted bribes in exchange for illegal California commercial driver’s licenses, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced Monday.

According to court records, Pena, 39, was responsible for processing driver’s license applications. He then started accepting money to alter written test scores to pass students from a truck driving school in Bakersfield.

The scheme between Pena and co-defendant Bikramjit Singh Pannu for the Skyway Truck Driving School in Bakersfield lasted from approximately January 2015 through August 2016.

Court documents state Pena improperly accessed the students’ DMV records and altered them to show that the students had passed the tests when that was not true. His alterations caused the fraudulent issuance of CDLs to the unqualified students.

Pena’s guilty plea included cooperating with the U.S. government in its ongoing case against Pannu, whose charges are pending.

Pannu and Pena were both arrested in March 2018 following a 13-count indictment by a federal grand jury, charged then with criminal conspiracy, one count each of bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, five counts of unlawful production of an identification document and five counts of unlawful transfer of an identification document.

With Pena now having pleaded guilty, he is scheduled to be sentenced in Fresno by U.S. District Judge Ana de Alba on Dec. 12, 2022.

Pena faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

This story was originally published September 20, 2022 at 6:38 PM.