Free Republic

Prison, fine for certifying driving tests By Pamela Perkins Contact March 17, 2004 A retired Memphis police officer was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in federal prison and fined $20,000 for taking money for falsely certifying test results at her driving school - clearing the illegal aliens to apply for Tennessee driver's licenses. "I'm just sorry," said Charlotte Creasy, 57, before U.S. Dist. Court Judge Jon McCalla sentenced her. She pleaded guilty in November to mail fraud conspiracy. Federal prosecutor Steve Parker, member of the U.S. Attorney's anti-terrorism section, asked McCalla to pass a sentence that would send a message...

The first firefighters at a fiery car wreck Sunday in Fayette County that killed a Memphis driver's license examiner thought it was suspicious even as they put out the flames. Investigators began an immediate search for a device that might have triggered the intense fire, said the chief of the Piperton Fire Department. The fire killed Katherine Smith, the examiner at the center of a federal investigation of an alleged scheme to issue driver's licenses fraudulently to men with Middle Eastern ties. Smith died one day before she was due to appear before a federal magistrate judge for a detention ...

A federal grand jury Tuesday returned a three-count indictment against Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. O. C. Smith, charging him with falsely reporting that he was attacked by an unknown person in 2002 outside the Regional Forensic Center. Smith was found bound in barbed wire with a bomb attached to his chest outside the Medical Center building. The indictment alleged Smith, 51, illegally and knowingly possessed a bomb which was not federally registered to him. Counts two and three allege Smith knowingly and willfully made false, fraudulent and fictitious material statements to special agents of the bureau of Alcohol,...