Posted on: Friday, April 2, 2004

Worker indicted in illegal driver's permit

Advertiser Staff

A federal grand jury yesterday indicted a Maui County employee on one count of improperly issuing a Hawai'i driver's permit last year.

Renee Danley, 40, was charged with issuing a learner's permit to an "N.C." on May 7, according to the indictment. She had been accused in a criminal complaint filed May 15 in U.S. District Court of illegally issuing at least 20 and perhaps as many as 70 state driver's licenses and permits.

Danley admitted accepting between $50 and $100 from applicants who took neither the written nor the road tests, the court document said. She is accused of handing out the bogus licenses while working at the Makawao office of the Maui Motor Vehicles Division.

If convicted Danley could spend up to 15 years in prison.

The U.S. attorney's office could not be reached for comment yesterday as to why she was indicted on just one charge.

Howard Luke, Danley's attorney, also could not be reached for comment.

The illegally issued licenses were discovered when Maui County officials compared information on various driver's license applications with information stored in a Social Security Administration database.

The comparison identified applicants using Social Security numbers not assigned to them, phony Social Security numbers and revealed discrepancies such as date of birth and sex, according to court documents.