On August 12, 2025, a former Massachusetts State Police (MSP) trooper, Calvin Butner, was sentenced to three months in prison for giving out fake passing scores to Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) applicants—even if they failed, or didn’t take the test at all.
The backstory: Butner and three other troopers ran the scheme between May 2019 and January 2023. The group would mark certain CDL applicants as “golden,” meaning those folks would get a free pass on the test, no matter their real results.
- At least 17 people got their CDL thanks to this scam, with three who failed and five who didn't even show up for the test.
- Text messages show Butner joking about some candidates’ poor skills or not testing at all.
How it went down: Authorities say “golden” was the code word. Per a text from Butner, “This guys a mess. . . . Lol. He owes u a prime rib 6inch.” Another message referred to one applicant as a “Golden mess.”
All the folks who received their bogus CDLs under this scheme have been reported to the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Butner’s sentence also includes a year of supervised release, with the first three months on home confinement. The government had asked for a longer sentence, but the judge settled for three months behind bars.