DMV Tester Jailed After Groping 14 Girls

Each girl went to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Redwood City hoping to walk away with a license. A trip to the DMV is such a teenage rite of passage -- like a first date or graduation -- that most teens think they know what to expect.

But DMV tester Calvin Hoang Cat subjected 14 young test takers to the unexpected.

Cat groped, fondled and hugged the girls while they were behind the wheel. Then he told many that they flunked.

Now Cat, a married father of two, is behind bars and a lawyer representing some of the girls is suing Cat and the state and calling for changes in the way the DMV administers the driving test to minors.

The 38-year-old San Jose man pleaded no contest to 29 misdemeanor counts of sexual battery and child annoyance. Earlier this month, San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Joseph Gruber sentenced Cat to two years in the county jail and five years’ probation.

Cat’s attorney, Craig Brown, did not return calls seeking comment. In a statement contained in a probation report, Cat blamed his behavior on a deep fear of being a passenger in a moving car.

“My stress and pressure level reached the highest when I sit in the passenger seat and let someone drive,” Cat said.

For the girls, taking their driving exam with Cat sullied what should have been a happy occasion.

One teen said she is “haunted by that terrible day I got my license.”

“I was stuck in a car by myself with a perverted older man,” the girl, now 17, said in a letter to probation officials. “Thoughts started running through my head, and I wasn’t sure of what to do.”

Even in an age when troop leaders, priests and teachers have been found guilty of molesting minors, this case was rare, said Stephen Wagstaffe, chief criminal deputy of the San Mateo district attorney’s office.

“It was somewhat brazen,” Wagstaffe said.

The incidents took place from July to September 2004, when Cat worked as a tester at the DMV office in Redwood City, about 20 miles northwest of San Jose. Cat, who had been working for about two months when the first incident occurred, said in the probation report that he had a reputation as a tough examiner “because I deduct points for even minor deviations from the established standards of a good and defensive driver.”

The victims took their road tests on different days. The only characteristics they shared were that they were young -- 12 of the victims were 16, two were 18 -- and taking the test for the first time.

“He was nondiscriminatory in his perversion,” Wagstaffe said. “His methodology was to get them to lean over.”

In some instances he suggested that a girl who was parallel parking needed to check her right rear tire, Wagstaffe said. To do that, he said, a driver has to unbuckle the seat belt and lean over the passenger’s seat. In other cases he told them to check their right-side mirrors.

“The young woman would lean over, at which point he would grope them,” Wagstaffe said.

Sometimes he comforted the girls after telling them they had failed their driving test.

“I was so upset I wanted to cry,” the girl said in a letter contained in the probation report. “He started to rub my shoulder in a way that made me feel uncomfortable and told me that it would be OK. And that I could try again. The fact that he let me try it again, also let me know there was something going on.”

She tried again and he failed her again. He also encouraged her to look out the window to see the curb.

Eventually she removed her seat belt and leaned over. Cat touched her buttocks and asked for a hug, she said.

“I didn’t want to touch him, but I felt like there was nothing I could do,” she wrote. “I hesitatingly leaned over and gave him a hug, praying this would end soon. When I gave him a hug he placed his hand on my chest.”

Authorities learned of the incidents because one girl told her mother, who alerted police. The girl later learned that two of her friends had had similar experiences with Cat. Several other girls came forward after media reports about the incidents.

A probation report describes Cat as apologetic yet denying the incidents.

Cat also reported being afraid of being a passenger in a car since a 1987 accident in which he was thrown from a vehicle and fractured his back. He told probation officials he took the DMV job because he had been unemployed for two years and needed to provide for his family.

Don Galine, a lawyer representing at least four of the victims, is suing Cat and the state.

Some of the incidents might have been avoided if the state had listened to a mother who reported her child’s encounter with Cat to the DMV, Galine said.

The lawsuit sought an injunction that would have put an immediate end to the practice of sending unaccompanied minors on driving tests with examiners.

Though the request is no longer part of the suit, the lawyer continues to press for changes in the procedure for testing minors.

The DMV is not convinced that change is needed.

“Our position is essentially the best way for a kid to take a test is to just go out there and do it without any kind of distraction,” said Steve Haskins, DMV spokesman. “Obviously any change would have to be legislated.”

Haskins said he could not comment on the lawsuit. An attorney with the state attorney general’s office, which is representing the DMV, did not respond to a call seeking comment.