The operator of a truck driving school in Georgia has been indicted for fraud in commercial driver licensing after an examiner pleaded guilty to accepting cash payments from him. Three Texas men also have been indicted for CDL fraud.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama, James Welburn, owner and president of American Truck Driving Academy (ATDA), was indicted. The charges state that “Welburn corruptly gave cash payments to Michael Jordan, a third-party CDL examiner that operated in Columbus, Georgia.” Jordan entered a guilty plea in July for his role in the conspiracy to falsify CDL examinations.
The charges stated that, “In exchange for cash payments from Welburn, Jordan falsified CDL examinations for ATDA students. The alleged falsifications included altering dates on score-sheets to conceal that Jordan conducted examinations before students were eligible to be tested; conducting more examinations than allowable on a single day; and giving ATDA students preferential treatment on the control skills portion of the exam by hand-selecting which test form to use when Jordan knew that Federal regulations required the test to be randomized.”
Also in July, a Texas Department of Public Safety employee, Alonzo Blackman, was indicted along with Fernando Guardado Vasquez and Marino Maury Diaz Leon.
The indictment, issued in the U.S. District Court in San Antonio, alleges that Vasquez and Leon paid Blackman to falsely certify that applicants passed the skills portion of the CDL test when those applicants had failed or had not taken the test. Blackman provided Vasquez and Leon with temporary CDLs for the applicants and Texas DPS later mailed permanent CDLs to them.
