Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A bus driver accused of using false information to apply for a commercial permit renewal was arrested by police and later charged by the government.

Filipo Silipa made his initial appearance in District Court last week.

He is charged with one count of criminal fraud and one count of issuing a false interment or certificate, both class C felonies, punishable by a term of imprisonment of up to seven years, a fine of up to $5,000, or both.

Bail is set at $5,000.

THE CASE

The defendant, Filipo Silipa was a bus driver for a local private bus company.

On Dec. 7, 2020, the defendant was issued a letter denying his commercial permit renewal by the Department of Public Safety (DPS) due to an excessive amount of citations issued to him throughout the year of 2020.

After the denial, the defendant took the bus owner’s commercial permit located in the bus that he operated without the owner’s knowledge or permission.

The defendant used whiteout (correction fluid) on the application that had been issued to the owner. He then covered up the owner’s identifying information, to wit, name, DOB, the last four digits of the driver’s license, nationality, place of birth, address, and phone number and replaced the information with his own personal identifying information.

The defendant photocopied the altered application and used the duplicate copy to obtain clearances from Immigration, Tax Office, and DPS records.

On or about Dec. 14, 2020, the defendant submitted the altered commercial permit application belonging to the bus owner to Immigration, the Tax Office, and DPS. After receiving all required clearances from the three offices, based on a counterfeit document, he submitted his application package to the Office of Motor Vehicle (OMV) in Tafuna on Dec. 14, attached with a court clearance that was contrary to the court clearance that was issued to the bus owner by the District Court.

The defendant was issued a commercial permit for the full year 2020-2021 from the OMV based on the counterfeit information used for the requisite clearances.

On Dec. 19th, the defendant met with investigators at the Tafuna Police Substation and was advised of his constitutional rights. He verbally admitted to the aforementioned acts. He further stated that he knowingly committed these acts to continue working as a bus driver.

On Dec. 29th, investigators met with a representative from the Department of Commerce (DOC) at the EOB in Utulei. The DOC representative stated that those who received a letter from DPS for denial of commercial permit renewal may submit the letter to their office and appeal the denial to the commerce commission board.

The two commercial permit applications, the original one issued to the bus owner and the subsequent one used to the defendant were examined.

There were several differences between the original and duplicate indicating alterations, which included different ink, breaks in the template lining where the correction tape was applied, differences in the handwriting, loose ink marking not being fully covered by the correction tape, transparent view of the ink by the copy machine and the duplicate copy used by the defendant was a machine copy document.