LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Lawmakers are looking for answers after a WDRB investigation exposed potential fraud in Kentucky’s transportation cabinet.
A former clerk said undocumented workers bought state driver’s licenses under the table for $200 each in a scam that went on for years.
“It’s pretty shocking. Everybody was talking about it throughout the day in Frankfort,” Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Majority Whip, said Tuesday. “We’re going to start an investigation with our oversight committee and we’re asking the attorney general to investigate it from a law enforcement angle.”
Nemes said the legislature will press for the public to know how the scam played out.
“The employees were being paid under the table,” Melissa Moorman told WDRB News. “I immediately let my supervisor know.”
According to a whistleblower lawsuit, when Moorman alerted the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to the scam, she was fired.
“I found out that there was some illegal activity being involved at the NIA Center where my ID was being used as part of the scam,” she said. “And it involved undocumented workers.”
Moorman claims the scheme happened four or five times a day for at least two years at multiple branches across the state.
“Who knew it, when did they know it and what did they know? What was done about it and how many people were involved? We need to get all those questions answered because this is a quiet serious allegation,” said Nemes.
WDRB first reported on the state’s license fraud investigation in April after obtaining a leaked revocation notice. According to documents obtained through an open records requests, KYTC sent 1,546 letters warning recipients of “irregularities” in their licenses, saying they were “issued in error … invalid and will be canceled” and threatening criminal charges if the license wasn’t returned.
At that time, KYTC confirmed at least two terminations — one at the Nia Center in west Louisville and another at the Elizabethtown branch — but wouldn’t release details. The cabinet denied requests for public documents on resignations, terminations and letters sent to drivers, citing ongoing investigations.
KYTC said it had nearly 2,300 records in response to WDRB’s requests in the license fraud case and it withheld every single one of them with one paragraph.
“Scott Sharp, the head of our Oversight Committee, is going to be sending a subpoena requesting the documents and if they say no to him, then they’re going to have to answer questions about why,” Nemes said.
Nemes is also probing on the truthfulness from Gov. Andy Beshear’s office.
In April, Beshear admitted in an interview with WDRB that there was an ongoing fraud investigation related to driver’s licensing in Kentucky but when asked if it had anything to do with immigration he said he wasn’t “aware.”
That’s despite Moorman’s letter blowing the whistle six months earlier.
“It would seem the governor would know about this,” said Nemes. “I don’t know if it got all the way up to him. It should have, and if it didn’t then that’s something else we need to find out.”
Under Kentucky law, non-U.S. citizens may obtain a standard driver’s license only if they provide legal presence documentation and proof of residency. KYTC confirms applicants’ status through federal verification systems.
“For immigrants who don’t have a pathway to obtain legal status, having a driver’s license can mean the difference between getting home from work safely to their children or wives or husband and not,” immigration attorney Adienne Trivedi said. “For a relatively small price to be able to have that chance of avoiding deportation, even just for that day, they’re willing to take it.”
To WDRB’s knowledge, no one has ever been charged in the license fraud investigation.
Quantum Solutions—a staffing service contracted by the commonwealth to supplement personnel at regional offices—KYTC and Beshear’s Office declined on-camera interviews for WDRB’s investigation.
