New Charges in Ill. CDL Scandal

Related Stories Another Illinois state worker charged in CDL scandal. (Feb. 12) Lawmakers seek CDL crackdown. (March 29) Inconsistencies said to be hobgoblins of CDL testing. (March 17) So-called CDL mills churn out test passers, not safe drivers. (March 17) (Note: To return to this story, click the "Back" button on your browser.)

Additional indictments were handed down in a bribery scandal involving commercial driver licensing in Illinois that has now spread to the state transportation department.

Thousands of truckers have had to retake portions of their commercial driver license tests in Pennsylvania because of improper testing, and many thousands may face retesting in Illinois. Mississippi is dealing with a similar but unrelated scandal, though apparently involving isolated incidents.

“Today’s indictment alleges for the first time that employees of the Illinois Department of Transportation corruptly provided trucks to facilitate the sale of commercial driver licenses by Secretary of State employees to unqualified applicants, fueling a risk of public safety,” Scott R. Lassar, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said April 6.

Federal authorities charge that between 1991 and 1998, Marion Seibel and George Velasco, two former managers of a CDL testing center in McCook, Ill., and others at the facility working for them, took bribes of cash, political fund-raising tickets and free services in exchange for allowing more than 250 unqualified applicants to pass written exams and road tests.

Three employees of the Illinois Department of Transportation were accused of providing IDOT trucks to be used in fixed road tests.

For the full story, see the April 12 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.