Massachusetts driving school owner sentenced for paying $20,000 in bribes in exchange for passing road test scores

The former owner of a driving school was recently sentenced for a scheme involving the payment of cash bribes to a road test examiner in exchange for passing scores, federal officials say.

On February 6, 2026, Carlos Cardoso, 72, was sentenced to time served (one day in prison) to be followed by two years of supervised release with the first six months to be spent in home incarceration, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts. He was also ordered to pay a $5,500 fine.

In 2025, Cardoso pleaded guilty to one count of honest services mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2024.

Authorities said Cardoso paid cash bribes totaling more than $20,000 to a road test examiner with the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) in Brockton “to misrepresent that certain driver’s license applicants had passed their road test when, in fact, they had not.”

Some of the license applicants did not even take the test, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, and the scheme resulted in unqualified drivers receiving licenses.

The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Transportation – Office of Inspector General.