Posted on: Friday, June 14, 2002
Ex-driver's license examiner sentenced
By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer
A former county driver's license examiner who worked out of the Kailua police station on the Big Island was sentenced in federal court yesterday to three years probation for selling driver's licenses to illegal aliens.
In addition, federal Judge Susan Mollway fined Clayton C. Perreira $3,600 and ordered him to perform 300 hours of community service.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Seabright said Perreira confessed to selling about 20 of the phony licenses, at $500 each, primarily to illegal aliens from Mexico, between September and December 2000.
Seabright said the phony licenses, which included fake Social Security numbers, provided a "sense of legitimacy" to noncitizens.
The wrongfulness of Perreira's acts and the consequences of helping illegal aliens pass as American citizens take on a much greater significance in light of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., Seabright told Mollway.
But Perreira's lawyer, Howard Luke, said it was "just baffling" to him how someone of Perreira's character and background could become involved in a criminal activity.
"Usually, I can fit the offender with the offense but I couldn't do it in this case," Luke said. He described Perreira as a "basically good guy, almost naive."
He asked Mollway to show compassion toward Perreira and his family by foregoing any jail time and to consider the "collateral damage" done to Perreira's life.
He said Perreira's 14-year career in the Hawaii Army National Guard is probably over, he lost his county job and the benefits that came with it and is having to start over "at the bottom" on a new job, which he did not identify.
Perreira's wife, Nicole, tearfully told Mollway she was sorry for what her husband did and described him as a loving father who took large amounts of time off from work to help their young son with a hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder problem. A younger daughter is showing signs of the same problem, she said.
In his own tearful apology to the court, Perreira said he was "very sorry" for his actions.
"I want to reinforce how important my family structure is to me," Perreira said.
He said that since the investigation began, he has emphasized to fellow employees the importance of "sticking to the straight path and doing things the right way."
Seabright told Mollway that he would not argue for or against prison time for Perreira and noted that he "stepped forward" and "did the right thing early on" after an FBI agent working on the case confronted him about the suspected illegal activity.
"But we have to look at what harm could have happened to putting people behind the wheel of trucks or cars who had no right to be behind the wheel," Seabright said.
Mollway said she was concerned that what Perreira did was not "just a one-time occurrence, but was "part of a pattern, a pretty extensive criminal activity."
But she said those observations were balanced against the facts that Perreira had no histories of crime, drug abuse, or violence, had been employed throughout his adult life, and appeared to be "far from a lost cause."
