Ex-DMV employee who sold fake ID gets probation

By Matt Pordum

Friday, July 22, 2005 | 8:43 a.m.

A Department of Motor Vehicles employee caught on tape selling a fake state identification card was sentenced to probation Thursday and will have to disclose her conviction to future employers.

After issuing a suspended 12- to 36-month prison sentence and placing Charita Carter on three years' probation, District Judge Stewart Bell told her that she would have to find a future employer "who will take a chance."

Carter previously pleaded guilty to one count of possession or sale of a document or personal identifying information to establish a false identity.

Prior to being sentenced, a contrite Carter acknowledged her actions did more than just see her lose "a very good job."

"To the Honorable Judge Bell, the attorney general, my attorney, my family and friends, I just want to say I'm terribly sorry for what I have put everyone through. It has been a learning experience, and I'm here to take responsibility for my actions."

Bell said the college-educated Carter had "done a lot more good in life" than her crimes. He said he expected "to never see you (Carter) again in the criminal justice system."

As a condition of her probation, Carter will have to submit to search for fraudulent documents, disclose her conviction to her future employer and serve four hours of community service.

Carter could have faced as much as five years in prison, but Senior Deputy Attorney General Conrad Haffen posed no opposition to her being sentenced to probation.

Carter came under suspicion after another woman, Crystal Lamb, was arrested on prostitution charges in September 2004. In January, Metro Police said they discovered Lamb had a fake Nevada identification card, which was eventually traced to Carter.

Lamb allegedly told state officials that she had been introduced to a man at the West Flamingo Road branch of the DMV. The man then introduced her to a clerk identified as Carter.

She would later pay a man named "Romeo" or "Remo" $500 for the falsified card, police said.

Carter was arrested after an undercover meeting in which Lamb tried to buy another ID card with bogus information, according to police.