An employee of the Office of Motor Vehicles has been charged with two counts of forgery and two counts of acceding to corruption.
Matthew Tafua is alleged to have issued forged commercial drivers licenses to several local drivers.
He was arrested over the weekend and is being held on bail of $10,000.
The forged drivers licenses were discovered when buses were stopped and checked for validity of their license plates.
In one instance the bus driver, Gasolo Gasolo, produced a driver’s permit that was handwritten and did not have the signature of the OMV Manager.
When police questioned Gasolo, he said that the permit was given him by an OMV employee named Tafua.
A written statement made by the bus driver had it that he had gone to OMV on July 17 to take a test for his commercial license.
The police officer who supervised the test said after the test he didn’t pass but his name would be included in the next class.
That same day, according to Gasolo, he met with Tafua and told him about not passing the test but he needed his commercial license. The bus driver alleges that the defendant offered to help him and asked for $60.
The next day according to the bus driver’s statement he and a friend, Sautia Fiti, went to OMV and Gasolo saw Fiti giving the OMV employee $60.
When police questioned the defendant about the forged commercial permit he said he didn’t recall doing that.
Tafua was asked about five other unidentified drivers with the same forged licenses and the defendant said he couldn’t remember but confirmed he charged $20 each for the permits.
Court filings quote Tafua saying he learned the practice from a former OMV employee, Sam Kolone, as a way to make extra money given his limited paycheck.
