SOUTH-CENTRAL : Shop Owner Faces Jail for Smog Fraud

The co-owner of a South-Central auto shop pleaded no contest last week to a charge that he produced fraudulent smog-check certificates.

Prosecutors said they will recommend a sentence of nine months in jail for Miguel Angel Vaca, 23, co-owner of Mad’s Auto Repair, 809 W. Florence Ave., at his June 21 sentencing in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Vaca, a Monterey Park resident, also will probably receive three years’ probation, during which he must relinquish his smog-check license and not operate a smog-check station, said Deputy District Atty. Rob Miller.

Vaca entered the plea to one count of perjury Monday, as his preliminary hearing on 11 counts of perjury and computer fraud was to begin. If convicted of all the original charges, he would have faced a maximum of six years in prison.

During a Sept. 17 surveillance of Mad’s Auto Repair, state investigators reportedly watched Vaca and employees Max Banuelos and Ulises Salcido Ortiz hook up Vaca’s Toyota truck, a low-emission vehicle, to the smog machine’s exhaust measuring device and enter identification data for at least 10 vehicles.

Prosecutors allege that this was a standard procedure used by more than 50 auto-repair shop operators and mechanics in Los Angeles County who were arrested in December and January in the biggest crackdown on phony certificates since the smog-check program began in 1984.

About 28 smog-check stations were targeted in the sweep by officials from the state Bureau of Automotive Repair and the Air Resources Board. Six South-Central stations, including Mad’s, and two in the Mid-City area have been hit with felony fraud charges.

Banuelos, 23, pleaded no contest to one count of computer fraud in March and will be sentenced May 21. Prosecutors said they will probably recommend a probationary sentence that calls for at least 30 days in jail.

Ortiz, 49, is still at large, prosecutors said.