State enforcement records obtained by NBC 5 Investigates raise new questions about whether the Texas Department of Public Safety has failed to act fast enough to shut down vehicle inspection stations suspected of taking cash in exchange for allegedly falsely passing cars.
The records suggest hundreds of questionable inspections were happening right under the nose of a DPS auditor charged with enforcing the inspection rules, yet DPS took no action against the shop itself.
That shop, Central Inspection Station, on East Ledbetter in Dallas was once the busiest state inspection location in the entire state of Texas - at least on paper.
From a single garage stall in a small building, state records show Central produced more than 89,000 vehicle safety and emissions inspections in 2021, and more than a quarter of a million inspections over a 3-year period.
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But a man who rented and worked out of the adjoining garage stall doesn’t believe those numbers.
“With the numbers, astronomical numbers, like, it's ridiculous,” said Clarence Stephens who owns his own auto repair business.
Stephens, who was in the building during much of the three years when Central was cranking out hundreds of thousands of inspections, said he never saw hundreds of thousands of cars coming and going.
In fact, Stephens said he never saw his neighbors perform an actual inspection on a vehicle.
“I never saw it, no,” Stephens said.
Yet, state inspection records show on 15 days in 2021, Central Inspection reported performing more than 450 inspections a day.
That's one vehicle inspected for two minutes, for twelve hours straight. Simply not possible, at any inspection station, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
“Nobody's working that hard,” said DPS Director Steven McCraw.
McCraw agreed that there is no way a shop in one small garage could inspect 265,000 cars in roughly 36 months.
But despite that red flag, DPS records show McCraw’s enforcement staff took no action against Central Inspection’s station license, even though records show an auditor from DPS’ Regulatory Services Division visited Central on three days in 2021 when the station reported more than 300 inspections in a day. Yet the auditor’s reports noted “no violations found” after those visits.
In an interview at DPS headquarters, NBC 5 Investigates asked McCraw how his staff could be there on those days and not realize the numbers were questionable.
McCraw declined to talk about the specifics of the case saying the department is dealing with a “performance issue” and he did not want to identify the individuals involved. McCraw added that his department is now looking into how its enforcement staff handled the situation.
“Granted they've got a lot to do on their plates, but when they missed something or they're not doing their job, as we believe they are, we'll take action,” McCraw said.
McCraw said there was a period of time when DPS intentionally held off on enforcement action against Central Inspection because DPS believed other law enforcement officials were stepping in to look at what was happening at the station and DPS did not want to disrupt that investigation.
But McCraw acknowledged there were points where his staff should have taken action. When asked if DPS missed an opportunity, McCraw replied, “Certainly, absolutely.”
Records show Central Inspection eventually stopped operating in early 2022, but it's not clear why. DPS never took disciplinary action against the station itself.
The man listed as Central's owner in DPS records told NBC 5 by phone he never owned the shop and thinks someone used his identity on the shop records.
Clarence Stephens believes Central was actually run by another man who rented him the other garage stall, a man NBC 5 has learned has a previous conviction for running a fraudulent emissions inspection.
Stephens told NBC 5 he now wishes he had never set foot in that building on Ledbetter.
“So, it was my fault for even dealing with them,” said Stephens.
After Central closed, Stephens says he hired a former Central employee. Then eight months later, Stephens says he caught that employee using Stephens’ inspection login to run fake inspections.
Stephens says he called DPS to notify them. DPS issued Stephens a notice suspending his station license. The notice said that on 197 occasions, Stephens’ employee connected an emissions analyzer device to one vehicle for the purpose of allowing another vehicle to pass inspection.
But the trouble didn't end there.
Stephens says DPS troopers showed up at the garage and arrested him for fake inspections.
“Arrested me a few days later. Falsifying government document,” Stephens told NBC 5.
That was seven months ago. So far prosecutors have not brought any formal charges.
Stephens says the arrest left him feeling that he has taken the punishment for what went on in the shop next door, while the folks who ran hundreds of thousands of suspect inspections were never punished.
He says the arrest has been a tough blow as he was trying to turn his life around from a previous criminal conviction more than 20 years ago.
“A turnaround is a turn away. If you don't complete the turn away, you get caught right back in it,” said Stephens.
DPS officials tell NBC 5 Investigates they are still looking into what happened at Central Inspection.
The department has already suspended the license of another shop with ties to Central, and director McCraw suggested more action could be coming.
NBC 5 Investigates reached out to the DPS auditor who visited Central but reported no violations on those days when the shop was turning out hundreds of inspections. The inspector declined to comment saying his supervisors told him not to speak with us.
McCraw says the best way to stop fake inspections would be to change the state inspection computer system which is run by the Texas Department of Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
As NBC 5 Investigates previously reported, the system captures information suggesting inspections are false but does not block the station from issuing a passing report in those cases.
The TCEQ recently made changes that lock some inspectors out of the system after they have done multiple fake inspections but by then those cars with false passing reports are already on the road.
