Ex-DOL worker sentenced for creating fake ID cards
Friday, October 7, 2005 11:09 PM PDT
By Associated Press
Printable version
E-mail this articleSEATTLE -- A former state Department of Licensing worker was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday for producing at least 80 fake identifications, which she sold for $100 to $150 to people who used them to commit bank fraud and evade deportation, among other things.
Peggy Lee Kendrix, 48, told the court through her lawyer that she felt "entirely remorseful and foolish," but U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik said the crime was so frightening he had no choice but to sentence her to the top of the 12-to-18-month guideline range.
"This is about the most dangerous kind of fake ID we can have out there," Lasnik said. "It's like having a skeleton key to get into anybody's house or anybody's car, and you can rob anybody you want to."
One person who obtained one of Kendrix's driver's licenses has used that identification to evade arrest for investigation of homicide, said Ron Legan, with the Social Security Administration's inspector general.
Kendrix started working in a West Seattle licensing branch, processing driver's license applications and renewals, in June 2001. She began issuing the fake IDs in early 2004, until an anonymous tip to law enforcement revealed her practices and she was arrested last May. She pleaded guilty in June.
She confessed after she was caught, but claimed she had only been helping out friends of her nephew who couldn't obtain licenses because they could not read or were wanted by police. She first denied accepting payment, but later admitted it and said her judgment had been clouded by pain from arthritis and an ensuing dependency on marijuana.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Vince Lombardi called the licenses she issued "the gold standard" of fake IDs, and said her actions were particularly frightening in a post-Sept. 11 world.
"It's hard to conceive of a more flagrant abuse of the public trust," he said. "She enabled other people to commit crimes."
Investigators have been combing through the licenses issued by Kendrix, looking for any that appear suspect, and state and federal prosecutions have been started against 40 people who purchased them.
Her customers have defrauded banks and other institutions of at least $42,000 and perhaps up to $70,000, Lombardi said. She was ordered to pay $42,000 in restitution, the amount of loss prosecutors said they can prove thus far. Other customers were sex offenders looking for a way to avoid registering with local law enforcement.
One of the customers, Sonia Arlene Robinson, bought a fake license from Kendrix on March 4, 2004. Robinson used the ID to evade arrest on California warrants and committed fraud and ID theft against an elderly victim, prosecutors said.
Robinson was arrested as part of the Kendrix investigation and has been sentenced to 52 months in prison and $130,000 in restitution.
About 20 of Kendrix's customers remain unidentified, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
"The harm caused by defendant's crime therefore remains an open question," it said.
Brad Benfield, a Licensing spokesman, said it was impossible to say whether Kendrix's actions should have been discovered sooner.
"Obviously, we would have liked it to have been caught earlier," Benfield said. "We did everything we could as soon as possible when we found out about it."
In recent years, the department has taken steps to improve oversight of workers, including adding two State Patrol officers to its internal investigations staff, he said.
Kendrix's case was not the first such case in the department's history, but it may have been the most extensive. Within the past two years, one worker was caught producing fake IDs for young family members, so they could get into clubs.
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