License crackdown nabs 13 NY bus drivers

Thirteen bus drivers have been charged with using aliases to get licenses, as part of a statewide crackdown to nab rogue operators, authorities said.

Four Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees were among 11 people arrested Friday, accused of fraudulently obtaining more than one driver's license. Two other drivers were arrested Thursday, according to a statement from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office.

Most of those arrested are from different private city companies and all 13 -- residents of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens -- saw their driving privileges suspended pending criminal prosecution, the statement said.

Cuomo ordered a task force involving the state Department of Transportation, the Department of Motor Vehicles and law enforcement to investigate after a March 12 bus crash on Interstate 95 in the Bronx in which 15 people died. The bus, carrying 32, was returning to Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood from a trip to a Connecticut casino when it overturned and skidded on its side into a roadside pole, shearing off the top of the bus.

Using data-matching and facial-recognition technology, investigators are comparing individuals with commercial driver's licenses with the photos on other licenses in the DMV database. The checks come after investigators discovered the driver in the Bronx crash, Ophadell Williams, obtained a commercial license when his driving privileges had been suspended.

Saturday, officials confirmed Williams was for a time an employee of the MTA, undergoing bus-driver training. He was subsequently fired after background checks showed he had a felony on his record, officials said.

Asked whether state bus regulations would be tightened, a Cuomo aide said Saturday: "All options are on the table. We are looking at everything."

The state DOT performs about 160,000 checks a year on buses based in New York. The vehicles undergo rigorous inspection every six months, state DOT spokeswoman Deborah Sturm Rausch said. Federal law mandates checks that are less rigorous only once a year, she said.

State police and the state DOT last weekend began a large-scale checkpoint operation targeting tour buses and drivers' records. As of Friday, state police had issued 72 moving violations against bus drivers statewide, Sturm Rausch said. About 250 buses have been pulled over and inspected since March 17, when the stepped-up inspections began.

In a statement Friday, chairman and CEO Jay Walder said the MTA had suspended without pay its four arrested drivers and was moving to dismiss them.