Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A second bus driver accused of using altered information to obtain a commercial permit to operate a bus was arrested by police last week.

The driver, Makalio Alesana made his initial appearance in District Court last week.

Alesana is charged with one count of fraud and one count of forgery, both class C felonies, punishable by a term of imprisonment of up to seven years, a fine of up to $5,000, or both.

Bail is set at $5,000.

THE CASE

In the morning of Jan. 2, 2021, two police officers stationed at the ASCC parking lot, conducting speeding enforcement and Commercial Motor Vehicle inspections, flagged down a red aiga bus heading west for the purpose of inspecting the driver’s documents.

The driver of the red aiga bus was later identified as Makaio Alesana, the defendant in this matter. When asked for his document, Alesana provided a Commercial Permit that was renewed and issued on 12/18/20. It was during checking this document that it was found that Alesana was recently issued a denial of Commercial Permit Renewal letter by the Department of Public Safety.

Alesana was asked to exit the bus and walk over to the police unit. Before any statements were made regarding obtaining the Commercial permit, investigators Mirandized Alesana, to which he stated he understood and wished to make a verbal statement.

Alesana verbally stated that he received a copy of the Commercial Application from Filipo Silipa (the defendant in another license fraud case of like nature) and filled it out himself with his name and information, and that was how he was able to get his Commercial Permit renewed for the year 2021.

Alesana’s aiga bus was impounded to the Tafuna Police Substation (TPS) for further investigation.

On Jan. 11, 2021, investigators met with the OMV Assistant Manager and asked her if she could pull the driver’s license files for Alesana. Upon receiving Alesana’s files, investigators noticed that the Commercial Application had been altered to display Alesana’s name on it, it looked as if the original had the names whited out using correction tape and a copy was made though a copy machine.

Investigators also noticed that the commercial permit application form for Alesana appeared to have the same information as the application that the first defendant, Filipo Silipa had turned into the OMV.