David Sun, 53, of Davis, was found guilty Friday on all counts related to a scheme to fraudulently obtain California Class A and Class B commercial driver licenses (CDLs) for the students of his commercial driving school, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.
After a seven-day trial, a jury convicted Sun of one count of conspiracy to commit unauthorized access of a computer and to produce identification documents without lawful authority, eight counts of production of identification documents without lawful authority, and one count of conspiracy to produce identification documents without lawful authority and to transfer identification documents produced without lawful authority.
According to court documents and evidence produced at trial, Sun operated a driving school named Commercial Driver Institute USA in the East Bay with a parking lot in Richmond. Sun primarily catered to Mandarin and Cantonese speaking students. He helped students get Class A or Class B commercial driver licenses that allowed them to drive large vehicles like tractor-trailer trucks and buses. Sun typically charged $2,500 to $6,500 per student.
Jurors found Sun committed two different types of fraud: a testing conspiracy where Sun helped his California students fraudulently bypass the required written or driving tests to get commercial licenses, and a residency conspiracy where Sun recruited students from New York and helped them pose as California residents to get a California CDL. Sun would arrange for the licenses to be mailed to the students who had returned to their actual home state of New York.
Sun’s students struggled with the written tests because of their English language limitations, so he helped them bypass the written testing requirements for learner’s permits. Those permits were issued from DMV’s Walnut Creek office under one employee’s login from at least November 2014 through January 2016. None of Sun’s students in the conspiracy or charged counts ever went to that Walnut Creek DMV office or passed the tests on the dates indicated in DMV’s records.
Sun instructed his students to attempt the written tests, which they did at various DMV offices in the Bay Area. If they failed, Sun took their DMV receipt, which would show their unique California DMV number, and a fraudulent permit would issue from the Walnut Creek DMV after fraudulent passing scores were entered under the Walnut Creek employee login.
On occasion, Sun provided his students with a Bluetooth device to wear during the driving test, and instructed them to wear a beanie to conceal it, so that Sun could tell the student what to say and do during the test. In addition, on many occasions Sun took his students to a particular license examiner at the DMV in Santa Rosa with whom Sun had a personal relationship. Evidence at trial showed that Sun was paid extra money to guarantee they would pass the driving tests.
This case is the product of an investigation by the California Department of Motor Vehicles Office of Internal Affairs and Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rosanne L. Rust and Christopher S. Hales are prosecuting the case.
Sun is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller on Dec. 9 and faces a total statutory maximum penalty of 15 years and 5 years in prison respectively for the conspiracy counts, as well as a maximum of 15 years in prison for each of the eight counts of production of identification documents without lawful authority.
The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.