Four people have been indicted in a federal court in Orlando, Fla., on conspiracy charges related to the illegal production of Florida commercial drivers’ licenses.
Ellariy Medvednik, Natalia Dontsova, Adrian Salari and Clarence Davis were indicted following an investigation by federal and state DOTs and state police.
Over the past two years, nearly 400 people used the same address on their CDLs. The address is registered as a place of business for Larex Incorporated, a trucking school owned and operated by Medvednik.
The DOT conducted the investigation based on information from the Florida Highway Patrol and Orange County Florida Tax Collector’s Office that a large number of people applying for CDLs were using the same residential address in Seminole County.
The indictment alleges Larex marketed itself to Russian language speakers and charged students approximately $1,800 to $5,000 to obtain a Florida CDL.
Investigators allege that Medvednik, Dontosova and Salari helped students cheat on the CDL written exam by using covert communications to give answers to the test takers. They also knowingly provided false certification and other documents to students to satisfy Florida CDL residency requirements, according to the DOT OIG report.
Larex used the same CDL tester for the road skills test portion – Clarence Davis, a third-party testing contractor. Davis allegedly passed hundreds of students even if they committed errors that should have resulted in automatic failures.
Davis also passed students knowing they didn’t understand English — a requirement for a CDL. Davis was paid an extra $75 for each Larex student he passed.
