A man accused of driving while drunk and killing a Marine and his date in a Thanksgiving accident in Columbia failed the written portion of his driver's license test twice in North Carolina before passing it on a third try.
Police said Eduardo Raul Morales-Soriano of Laurel, who authorities say is apparently an illegal immigrant, had four times the legal limit of alcohol in his system.
He faces multiple drunken driving, negligent homicide and negligent manslaughter charges in the deaths of Cpl. Brian Mathews, 21, of Columbia, who was home on leave, and Jennifer Bower, 24, of Montgomery Village.
Morales-Soriano took a Spanish-language version of the North Carolina driver's test on a computer three times, passing on the third try, Margaret Howell, spokeswoman for the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, said yesterday. He got his driver's license Feb. 5, 2004, when he passed the written test and road test.
He obtained a Maryland license legally on July 8, 2005, by submitting a Sprint phone bill, Bank of America account statement, a North Carolina driver's license and Virginia identification card, according to redacted copies obtained by The Sun under the state's Public Information Act.
"We don't ask about someone's immigration status," said Buel C. Young, a spokesman for the state's Motor Vehicle Administration. "We're not an immigration office."
If Morales-Soriano, 25, had entered the country illegally today, he likely would have had a harder time obtaining a Maryland driver's license because Virginia and North Carolina have tightened their restrictions in recent years.
Maryland's efforts, however, have focused on catching fraud. A 2003 Maryland attorney general's opinion concluded that proof of legal U.S. residency was not a requirement for a driver's license.
"We have made changes to get rid of documents that are difficult or impossible to authenticate," Young said. "We're looking to combat fraudulent attempts to get a driver's license, but [Morales-Soriano's] was not fraudulent. He went through the proper channels."
Tracing Morales-Soriano's steps through motor vehicle records, he obtained a Virginia identification card and learner's permit on July 12, 2001, two months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted a review of the country's driver's license laws. Seven of the 19 hijackers had fraudulently obtained Virginia driver's licenses or identification cards.
