Brockton RMV manager, driving school owner plead guilty in bribery scandal

Chris Helms, The Enterprise
·2 min read
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The line for the RMV in Brockton snakes around the building as people from across the county wait in line for hours on Wednesday, March 18, 2020.

BROCKTON — An RMV service center manager copped to taking bribes from drivers who couldn't pass a written test.

The former manager of Brockton's RMV service center, 43-year-old Mia Cox-Johnson of Brockton, pleaded guilty to two counts of extortion and one count of conspiring to commit extortion, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts.

Prosecutors said that in one case, she took $1,000 cash for giving a passing score on a learner's permit test to someone who had failed the test six times.

Also pleading guilty to one count of mail fraud was Brockton's Estevao Semedo, 61. Semedo owns Pires Auto School on Pleasant Street.

"Specifically, it is alleged that Semedo paid a road test examiner at the Brockton RMV service center to misrepresent to the RMV that certain driver’s license applicants had passed their road test when in fact they had not," the Justice Department said. "Some of the applicants did not even show up to take the test. As a result of the fraud, the RMV mailed driver’s licenses to unqualified applicants."

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The schemes allowed drivers to bribe their way to driver's licenses and learner's permits, putting potentially dangerous drivers onto the streets of Brockton and surrounding towns. More than 2,000 customers at Brockton's RMV on Forest Avenue got passing scores by road-test examiners without taking a road test, a state investigation previously found.

Cox-Johnson made $93,464 in her last full year of employment with the Department of Transportation (2021), according to state records. In 2022, the state paid her base pay of $13,782 plus a buyout of $15,878.

The Enterprise called Semedo's attorney, Nathaniel H. Amendola of Norwell, and Cox-Johnson's attorney, William Keefe of Boston. We will update this story if either lawyer responds.

Cox-Johnson's plea deal includes U.S. Attorney Rachel Rollins recommending a prison sentence "at the low end" of guidelines. Semedo's deal includes the same provision.

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This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton RMV: Mia Cox-Johnson pleads guilty in bribery scandal