Five Louisville Residents Indicted in Driver's License Fraud Scheme That Charged $200 to $1,500 to Skip Tests
On February 4, 2026, a federal grand jury in Louisville, in Jefferson County, Kentucky, indicted five Louisville residents on fraud and money laundering charges, accusing them of charging legally present non-U.S. citizens fees on the promise of expedited driver's licenses without testing. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Kentucky announced the indictment.
The five defendants are Donnita Wilson, 32; Aariel Matthews, 27; Raul Tellez Ojeda, 32; Lazaro Alejandro Castello Rojas, 37; and Robert Danger Correa, 41. The indictment charges them with 14 counts of mail fraud, one count of mail fraud conspiracy, 14 counts of honest services mail fraud, one count of honest services mail fraud conspiracy, 14 counts of unlawful production of identification documents, and one count of money laundering conspiracy.
According to the indictment, the defendants devised and executed a scheme that solicited illegal fees of between $200 and $1,500 from legally present non-U.S. citizens applying for driver's licenses, on the promise that they would be expedited through the process without undergoing testing requirements. Certain conspirators allegedly altered information in government databases to bypass important steps in the application process and thereby issued invalid licenses. The indictment alleges the defendants perpetrated the scheme for their own financial gain and betrayed the trust placed in them by Kentucky's Transportation Cabinet.
U.S. Attorney Kyle G. Bumgarner said the indictment is the culmination of an investigation into a scheme by Kentucky Transportation Cabinet employees and others to illegally circumvent Kentucky's process for issuing driver's licenses, and that proper vetting of individuals seeking a driver's license is a prerequisite to ensuring the safety of Kentucky's roadways and the legitimacy of state-issued identification.
If convicted, the defendants face a maximum of 20 years in prison for each count of mail fraud, mail fraud conspiracy, honest services mail fraud, and money laundering; a federal district judge will determine any sentence after considering the sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors, and there is no parole in the federal system. The Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation division, the Kentucky State Police, the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General, and the Drug Enforcement Administration investigated the case, with assistance from the Owensboro Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin McKenzie is prosecuting the case. An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Kentucky
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于美国华盛顿的美国国税局总部大楼宪法大道入口（资料照片）。Carol M. Highsmith 摄，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons；联邦固定图库标准图。 / Photo: The entrance of the Internal Revenue Service headquarters building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. (file photo). Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; federal fixed-library image.
