Eighth Person Admits Role Commercial Truck License Scam
June 28, 2008 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
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The former superintendent of a trucking school in West Plains pleaded guilty on Thursday for his role in a scheme to help immigrants get unearned commercial drivers licenses. Dean Proffitt ran the South Central Career Center, which closed after a federal investigation found citizens of Bosnia and Somalia were given passing grades without completing their driving exams. Proffitt is the eighth person to plead guilty in the case.
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Edited news release from the U.S. attorney’s office:
“These defendants shirked their responsibility to help safeguard the public and protect national security through their roles in the licensing process,” said John Wood, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri. “This scheme provided commercial driver’s licenses to foreign nationals who did not meet minimum training requirements.”
Dean Proffitt, 73, of West Plains, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge James England this morning to the charge contained in a federal indictment on Sept. 20, 2006. Proffitt admitted that, from Nov. 1, 2003, to Feb. 6, 2006, he counseled and encouraged co-defendant Orbin May, 64, of West Plains, and others to defraud the West Plains School District.
Proffitt was the superintendent of South Central Career Center (SCCC) truck driving school in West Plains. SCCC, which is no longer in operation, was part of the West Plains School District, which had a contract with Missouri to be a “third party tester” of persons seeking to take the driving portion of the Missouri Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) test. May was one of the persons whom Proffitt supervised at SCCC to administer the CDL driving test.
May had an agreement with co-defendant Ernest White, also known as Mustafa, 50, of Kansas City, Mo., who operated Muslim Brothers and Sisters (MBS), a trucking company that operated a truck driving training school in Kansas City, for May to give preferential treatment to students of White’s truck driving school. White had an agreement with May to permit White’s students to take CDL driving tests on Saturdays or Sundays, contrary to the CDL testing contract between SCCC and the Missouri Department of Revenue or state regulations.
May would receive payment from White above the amounts which SCCC was charging others for administration of the CDL driving test, keeping the excess payment for himself rather than remitting the funds to the school district.
Proffitt knew or had reason to believe that May and White had this agreement but willfully ignored the obvious actions of May and White, and encouraged May to conduct tests on Saturdays or Sundays, a preferential treatment not offered or given to others desiring to take the CDL test at SCCC. Proffitt knew of and encouraged May to accord this preferential treatment to students of White. Proffitt knew that May was receiving an excess payment of at least $20 per student whom May “passed” from White’s school and that May was not remitting this money to the school district.
Altogether, May passed approximately 300 students this way with Proffitt’s encouragement, leading to a fraud upon the school district of approximately $6,000, which May received as a bribe for the illegal testing.
