An employee of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in Ohio was acquitted by a federal jury. She had been accused of conspiring to aid undocumented aliens obtain drivers licenses. According to the Columbus Dispatch,
Nekeia Mack-Fuller, 31, was one of eight people charged in the federal identity-theft ring, but the only one to be acquitted. The other seven all pleaded guilty to charges. "I'm very pleased," she said after yesterday's jury verdict. "I wasn't going to plead guilty to something I didn't do."
Mack-Fuller was charged with three felonies: aggravated identity fraud and two conspiracy charges. She could have faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Harrisonburg, Va., argued throughout the trial that Mack-Fuller should have noticed an influx of Puerto Rican documents being used to obtain Ohio IDs.
Prosecutors said Jose Gutierrez-Ramirez arranged for hundreds of illegal immigrants living in Virginia to obtain Ohio IDs at the Eastside License Agency on Scarborough Square with the help of Edwin Mendez.
Gutierrez-Ramirez, 35, was sentenced to 60 months in prison. Mendez, 33, was handed a 50-month sentence. Mack-Fuller, a former manager at Eastside, maintained her innocence and refused to strike a deal with prosecutors.
According to her attorney, David L. Heilberg of Charlottesville, Va., " My African-American client was warned to be scared about the conservative possibly all white jury that she could be expected to face in a southern state that she never visited before. However, my client maintained her innocence from the first day. Her defense was all about not judging a book by its cover in terms of illegal discrimination and profiling that can occur in public places.
The jury should be congratulated for their courage and integrity in the face of criticism from many in the community who believed that the acquittal must have occurred because of jury malfeasance or that she must have been guilty by virtue of association with others who were guilty."
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