A DMV supervisor in Long Island has been accused of orchestrating a scheme that involved her sister impersonating other individuals to take commercial license exams for unqualified aspiring truck drivers, according to prosecutors on Thursday.
Kanaisha Middleton, 33, who served as a Department of Motor Vehicles supervisor, reportedly ran this cash-for-license operation for over six months. Her older sister, Jaime Middleton, 35, was allegedly hired to don various disguises, including fake mustaches, to take the commercial driving tests on behalf of others, as stated by the Nassau County District Attorney’s office.
“She utilized disguises, varying her clothing and resorting to fake mustaches, beards, glasses, and masks — akin to a character in a spy movie,” District Attorney Anne Donnelly remarked.
“These disguises were meant to facilitate the scheme for the cameras,” she noted. “The actual applicants never entered the Garden City DMV, nor did they interact with the testing process at all.”
“Cheating will never triumph,” Donnelly said during a news conference.
The Middletown sisters are believed to have enlisted two more DMV employees, Tawanna Whitfield, 36, and Satoya Mitchell, 35, to engage in the deception, charging clients as much as $3,000 per license exam, according to prosecutors.
Thankfully, the applicants could not circumvent the mandatory road tests required for commercial driver’s licenses, and only one out of the nine “clients” managed to pass after taking the driving test.
“We’re discussing drivers who lack knowledge of road regulations and hadn’t passed a commercial driver’s license test prior to this,” said Donnelly, emphasizing the seriousness of the situation. “They could be operating a 20,000-pound tractor trailer. This scheme posed a significant danger.”
All four individuals face charges including corrupting the government, undermining the integrity of a government licensing examination, tampering with public records, and falsifying business records, with potential prison sentences of up to seven years if found guilty.
The DMV fraudsters are not the sole individuals implicated in the extensive 51-count indictment.
Three of the applicants — James Nurse, 42, Omesh Mohan, 42, and Rene Sarduy, 44 — have been charged with tampering with public records and falsifying business records, according to prosecutors.
Nurse, who works as a Town of Hempstead sanitation worker, was the only one to successfully pass his road test and utilized the fraudulent license to operate a recycling truck in the town. Meanwhile, Mohan, who did not fare well during his road test, has a previous record including nine months in prison for vehicular assault.
Authorities are actively seeking other fraud participants.
The illicit operation reportedly began in March 2023 and persisted for at least six months.
Kanaisha Middleton’s sister successfully passed all but one of the in-person DMV exams she took while masquerading as a valid license applicant, according to the DA.
In total, the group collected between $1,500 and $3,000 for nine commercial and one passenger license test.
The ruse unraveled when a vigilant DMV employee recognized that the “man” taking the test was, in fact, a woman in disguise, leading to a tip to the state Inspector General’s Office, who subsequently notified the DA.
Kanaisha Middleton surrendered to authorities on Wednesday and faced arraignment on the charges, while the remaining accused conspirators were taken into custody over the course of the past nine days, prosecutors disclosed.
“They compromised not only the safety of fellow New Yorkers but also their own oaths of office,” remarked New York State Inspector General Lucy Lang at Thursday’s press conference.
“Bypassing this essential safeguard is not merely an innocuous shortcut, it’s a genuine peril to public safety,” Lang stated. “Families, commuters, and pedestrians throughout our state rely on the integrity of the licensing process.”
