Lawyer among 6 charged in car theft ring

A federal grand jury indicted an Atlanta attorney and five other people accused of stealing expensive cars, altering their vehicle identification numbers and fraudulently obtaining new titles for their cars, the Department of Justice said Friday.

Janell Payne, 39, of Atlanta, was charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud and altering a VIN in connection with the high-end car theft ring, the agency said in a statement.

“When a civil servant is associated with criminal activity,” Special Agent in Charge Floyd Martinez said in the statement, “it undermines the public’s trust in government.”

According to prosecutors, Payne and the others allegedly worked together to steal high-end vehicles, mainly from car dealerships in Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina.

After stealing the cars, they researched vehicles that were similar, and when one was found, they used that vehicle’s VIN to create a new VIN for the stolen car. They then affixed the new VIN to the dashboard to thwart detection that the vehicle was actually stolen.

“At that point, defendants submitted fraudulent powers of attorney to state motor vehicle departments to obtain copies of the titles of the similar cars,” U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak said. “With the fake title in hand, the defendants allegedly sold the stolen car with its new VIN.”