A 30-year-old Virginia bus driver who was axed from her job turned the tables and scammed the system by peddling more than 100 phony driver’s licenses, federal prosecutors said.
Ashya Janai Harley admitted that she ran the fake license scam for more than a year, charging her illicit customers $300 a pop for a standard license or $450 for a commercial driver’s license – and now faces 15 years behind bars when she’s sentenced in September, the feds announced.
In all, she cranked out 124 faux licenses, the US Attorney in Eastern Virginia said.
Prosecutors said Harley was running the illicit service from at least May 2022 to August 2023, getting clients through personal ads or through Instagram accounts or referrals from friends.
Using her own forged documents, Harley worked briefly as a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority bus driver in July 2022 – but didn’t make it out of training and was fired in October.
Prosecutors said she began selling the phony licenses during her training, but that’s not what got her fired. It is unclear why she was axed.
Harley electronically altered driving transcripts and records such as proof of residency to apply for the licenses.
The operation oversaw the creation of 54 fraudulent license applications and used her mother’s address in Alexandria on more than 67 proof-of-residency documents.
She is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 26.
