Two former Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles staffers face criminal charges alleging they accepted bribes to submit fraudulent passing scores on written driver’s tests.
The two former customer service workers each face one count of Level 5 felony bribery and one count of Level 6 felony official misconduct filed last week by the Marion County prosecutor’s office.
They both worked at the BMV’s Indianapolis Midtown branch on the city’s northeast side, according to the state inspector general’s office.
The charges allege that the two staffers accepted payments and manually entered passing scores for written driver’s tests that customers never actually took, allowing those people to improperly obtain a learner’s permit or license.
Investigators identified more than 300 illegitimate tests entered under those staffers’ BMV log-in credentials between June 2023 and February 2024.
The inspector general’s office said the scheme was uncovered after workers at another BMV branch “noticed an unusual pattern of customers who had previously failed written tests suddenly obtaining permits or licenses.”
One of the workers told investigators that she received “a couple hundred dollars” per fabricated test, while the other said she received either $75 or $100 per test, according to a probable cause affidavit filed by prosecutors.
Other BMV staffers became suspicious about some non-native English speakers passing driver’s tests in English after having previously failed the tests in their preferred language, the affidavit said.
The BMV invalidated all the driver’s licenses and permits linked to the case and required all those involved to pass new exams, the inspector general’s office said.
The former workers face up to six years in prison if convicted of the most-serious charges.
Indiana Inspector General Jared Prentice said their actions “not only betrayed Hoosier trust, but it also created the potential that unqualified and untested drivers were on Indiana’s roads.”
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