Three individuals in Louisiana pleaded guilty to charges related to their participation in a CDLs-for-bribes scheme that allowed at least 124 people to fraudulently obtain a CDL.
- U.S. Attorney David I. Courcelle announced the July 29, 2026, guilty pleas of Mahmoud Alhattab, Jonathan Parsons, and Marline Roberts, who each pleaded guilty to one count of Bribery Concerning Programs Receiving Federal Funds.
- Alhattab, according to a press release from Courcelle’s office, admitted to being the ringleader of a scheme in which CDL applicants each paid him on average roughly $5,000 to receive unearned CDLs.
- The scheme allowed applicants to bypass each of the three mandated steps of the CDL qualification process -- knowledge testing, entry-level driver training, and skills testing.
- Applicants with "no English" were among those involved in the bribery scheme, which took place between 2020 and early 2024.
How the CDLs-for-bribes scheme worked
According to court documents, Alhattab, a local restaurant owner, admitted to bribing two employees of a Donaldsonville, Louisiana, Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV) office to defeat the knowledge test requirement.
Typically, he'd provide an OMV employee with a photograph of the applicant’s driver’s license and identify any desired endorsements, such as a school bus endorsement. Next, the OMV employee would enter correct knowledge test answers for the applicant. Finally, Alhattab would bring the applicant to the Donaldsonville OMV office where the OMV employee would provide the applicant with a commercial learner’s permit based on the falsified knowledge test scores.
[Related: Six charged in CDLs-for-bribes scheme]
Alhattab paid the two OMV employees in cash, also providing them meals.
As part of his guilty plea, Alhattab admitted the OMV employees allowed him to bring applicants into the office through a non-public side door and into non-public parts of the OMV office. Sometimes Alhattab personally operated the OMV camera to take an applicant’s photograph for the commercial learner’s permit.
Alhattab also admitted that, to defeat the training requirement, he bribed two men who operated truck driver training businesses, one whom was Jonathan Parsons, who also pleaded guilty. Alhattab would send Parsons a photograph of an applicant’s CLP to provide information needed to generate false training records.
Parsons admitted in his plea that, in exchange for payments from Alhattab, he reported in a federal database that applicants successfully completed training when, in truth, they hadn't trained at all.
Finally, to bypass the skills test, Alhattab admitted that he bribed Parsons and the other business operator; both operators were not only trainers but certified by Louisiana to administer the skills test.
Parsons falsely reported to the state that applicants had passed the skills test when, in truth, the applicants did not take the test, he admitted. Early in the scheme, Alhattab would sometimes pose as the applicant and drive the commercial vehicle used for testing so that it would appear that Parsons was administering a skills test to a CDL applicant. However, Alhattab and Parsons eventually decided that this precaution was unnecessary and Parsons would routinely enter skills tests without Alhattab or the applicant appearing at the test site.
On some occasions, Parsons paid another skills test examiner, defendant Marline Roberts, to assist in the scheme. As part of her guilty plea, Roberts admitted to creating phony score sheets to corroborate Parsons’ false test reports.
Ringleader flagged applicants with 'No English'
After a CDL applicant received false test scores, Alhattab would typically inform an OMV employee that the applicant was returning to the Donaldsonville OMV office to get the CDL. Alhattab acknowledged that many of the applicants were not proficient in English and, therefore, he sometimes advised the OMV employees of language barriers.
On one occasion, for instance, he texted an OMV employee that an applicant “is outside [the OMV office] to get his CDL” and “No English."
Court documents did not specify how many of the approximately 124 fraudulent CDL recipients were not English proficient.
[Related: FMCSA to update English language proficiency OOS rule]
According to admissions in the guilty pleas, the scheme operated between roughly August 2020-February 2024, amid an uptick in immigration to the United States and relaxed work authorization procedures that would lead to renewed focus on CDL drivers' English proficiency in 2025, returning the violation in June to the out-of-service criteria.
OOS ELP violations for CDL holders, some no doubt resulting in CDL revocations, have been on the uptick since, as shown in the chart below showing the first year after the OOS return, current through mid-May based on the accounting of Overdrive sister company RigDig.
Alhattab and Parsons' admissions included scheming to increase the number of applicants they helped fraudulently obtain CDLs over the time period of the scheme. Alhattab admitted to 124 CDLs, Parsons 118 at least.
Roberts admitted that on seven occasions in early 2023, she created false scoring sheets to assist Parsons in making false skills test reports.
Each of the defendants faces up to 10 years’ imprisonment, up to three years’ supervised release following imprisonment, a fine of up to $250,000, and a $100 special assessment fee. Sentencing for these three defendants is scheduled for Oct. 28.
Other defendants charged in the case -- OMV employees Jenay Davis and Shakira Millien and truck driver training business owner Christopher Byran Burns -- are awaiting trial.
[Related: Police officer convicted of extortion over fake CDL testing]
