photo ping
Special Agent George Bolds IV, media coordinator for the FBI Memphis Office, inspects the trunk of a burned-out Acura, owned by Katherine Smith, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2002, in Memphis. Smith, a driver's license examiner, was scheduled to appear in federal court Monday on charges that she sold driver's licenses to five Middle Eastern men, primarily from New York, who did not have proper documentation. Her badly burned body was found in the car Sunday, after it struck a utility pole. (AP Photo/Greg Campbell)
Under the gaze of investigators, Katherine Smith's Acura rests at the FBI office. Arson caused the blazing wreck, officials believe.
Smith led low-impact life until arrest, fiery end
Mystery still shrouds her fiery death, and whether her fate was linked to a scam with violent, global implications.
But old acquaintances and state records obtained Thursday by The Commercial Appeal shed some light on driver's license examiner Katherine Smith.
Smith told investigators she and codefendant Khaled Odtllah were friends who met when she took her car to his Phillips 66 station, FBI agent J. Suzanne Nash testified Wednesday in a detention hearing for three of the codefendants.
The relationship was nothing more serious than their being friends, Nash added.
Smith was in the process of buying from Odtllah the 1992 Acura Legend in which she died. The car is still registered in Odtllah's name, Nash said.
Smith told the FBI agent that when Odtllah found out she was a driver's license examiner, he asked her if she could help get licenses for his "cousins."
After her arrest, Smith admitted helping Odtllah obtain driver's licenses six or seven times. Previously, the most severe reprimand Smith received in her state personnel file involved an accusation that she altered a document for an excused absence from work in 1990.
...on charges that she sold driver's licenses to five Middle Eastern men, primarily from New York, who did not have proper documentation It's a long way from NYC to Memphis. Certainly there are crooked people in NYC that could provide falsified information that they could have used to obtain local IDs.
The claim was made that they were obtaining IDs for employment purposes. Who lets a driver use an out of state license for long term employment?