1-Day Jail Sentence Given for Producing Fake Driver Permits

In a plea bargain arranged with prosecutors, a recent Irvine high school graduate who ran a brisk business producing fake driver’s licenses for minors has entered a guilty plea and will spend Friday in jail.

Paul Howard Schwartz, 18, whose illegal business once earned him $1,000 a week, was also sentenced to two years’ probation and ordered to serve 16 hours of community service and counseling and pay almost $600 in fines, a Harbor Municipal Court spokeswoman said.

Schwartz pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of illegally reproducing driver licenses, and is scheduled to report to Orange County Jail in Santa Ana on Friday, the court spokeswoman said.

Schwartz’s sentence ends lengthy plea bargaining in which Irvine police pressed for felony charges while Schwartz’s attorney, Mark A. Gottesman, sought leniency. Had more serious charges been filed, Schwartz could have faced at least one year in jail.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Bruce M. Patterson, head of the district attorney’s office at Harbor Municipal Court, filed three misdemeanor charges against Schwartz. Two of those charges were dropped in the plea bargain that was made public last Friday, officials said. Patterson was unavailable for comment.

Under the agreement, misdemeanor charges of selling a fictitious document and possessing and forging a state seal were dropped in exchange for a plea of guilty to photographing and reproducing driver’s licenses, the Harbor Court spokeswoman said.

“I’m sure that (Patterson) thought that just being prosecuted (on the misdemeanor charge) would be a major reminder to this young man to go down the right path,” Gottesman said.

Although saying that his client’s punishment was appropriate, Gottesman nevertheless expressed personal disappointment that Schwartz would spend a day behind bars.

“I don’t think he should be going to jail, quite frankly,” Gottesman said in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles law office.

He criticized media accounts of his client’s arrest in June, saying that the press and the Irvine Police Department made life for Schwartz almost unbearable.

“He was humiliated in school. He became alienated from his family,” Gottesman said. “I don’t condone what he did, but given the right circumstances he can really turn himself around. He’s got great entrepreneurial talent.”

Schwartz was unavailable for comment.

Schwartz was arrested in June, two weeks before he graduated from University High School, after a two-month investigation by Irvine undercover police officers.

Undercover Investigation

Irvine Police Sgt. Leo Jones said police officials suspected that fake driver’s licenses were being mass-produced in the area early this year when they noticed that an increasing number of drivers they stopped possessed doctored licenses.

An investigation was launched, Jones said, and Schwartz was arrested after undercover Irvine officers approached Schwartz and ordered alterations of driver’s licenses.

At the time of Schwartz’s arrest, police confiscated more than 100 driver’s licenses in various stages of alteration, Jones said. Evidence at the home of Schwartz’s parents indicated that he had sold--at a cost of $60 apiece--about 250 licenses since January.

In some cases, Schwartz changed the birth dates on licenses belonging to minors and then used a Department of Motor Vehicles stamp to make the changes appear more authentic. In other cases, he used a professional photography studio near his home to create forged licenses.

No charges were filed against the owners of the photography studio, police said.

After Schwartz’s arrest, Irvine police officials offered amnesty to any minor who returned one of the fake licenses, which are often used to enter over-21 nightclubs and buy alcohol. Irvine police officials were unavailable for comment on how many licenses they estimate are still unaccounted for.