A DOT official in New York State has been charged with taking bribes from the trucking companies he was supposed to be inspecting.


A criminal complaint was filed in U.S. District Court charging James H. Wood, 44, of Delevan, N.Y., with a felony charge of accepting a bribe in his official duties. The offense carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both.

Wood, in his capacity as a field office supervisor for the Buffalo, N.Y., office of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, allegedly, took money in exchange for delaying a compliance review/safety audit of a trucking company. Wood entered a plea of not guilty.

According to an article in BuffaloNews.com, Wood is accused of accepting bribes from safety consultants for Canadian commercial trucking companies, who paid him to provide inside information that let some trucking companies avoid or delay inspections of their vehicles.

He also allegedly took cash to initiate "complaint audits" that could put a company out of business, and at times he helped trucking firms get "friendly audits" that allowed them to keep potentially unsafe vehicles on the road.