By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – An Erie County motor vehicles clerk from Buffalo has been arrested for selling fake Identification documents to teenagers. Latasha Colbert was arraigned Saturday in Buffalo City Court and faces seven years if convicted.
For six years, Colbert worked as a part-time clerk at the Broadway DMV - until she was fired last week. The 24 year-old faces several felony charges for accepting bribes to alter birth dates on identification cards.
An undercover officer allegedly paid Colbert $100 dollars over the regular fee to have a license altered. Colbert is also suspected of altering IDs for a 14 year-old girl and a 19 year-old girl linked to a local escort service. The girls allegedly sought the IDs so they could work at strip clubs or casinos.
Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul said the mother of one of the girls' tipped them off, triggering the month-long investigation.
All of Colbert's past transactions are being reviewed. But Hochul said she is also calling on the state DMV to improve procedures for internal tracking of all clerks.
Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark agrees thta's a good idea. He said the alleged crime brings attention to a glaring need for greater security given the threat of terrorism.
Clark said Colbert's alleged actions also had potentially "doubly bad" repercussions for the teenage girls who tried to get the fake IDs. Had they received them, Clark said they would have had entry into a life of prostitution.
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