Drug dealer Eugene N. Cobbs, whose 2004 plane crash yielded West Virginia's largest cocaine haul and whose fake ID led to a grand jury rebuke of PennDOT's driver's licensing system, has admitted his guilt and is headed to prison for at least seven years.

Mr. Cobbs, 38, of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty last month in Wheeling to conspiracy to distribute huge shipments of cocaine, which he flew to Philadelphia from Compton, Calif.

After he crashed his small plane at the Wheeling-Ohio County Airport in December 2004, authorities recovered 525 pounds of cocaine worth $24 million, the largest seizure of the drug in West Virginia history.

Federal marshals and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration last year tracked Mr. Cobbs to Mexico and extradited him to Wheeling, where he remains.

He also faces prosecution by Pennsylvania's state attorney general's office after his federal sentences are imposed in January. Following the plane crash, Mr. Cobbs checked into a Weirton hotel and produced a fake Pennsylvania driver's license in the name of Marquis T. Munroe.

That discovery triggered a grand jury investigation by the state attorney general's office that so far has resulted in charges against more than 45 people accused of using stolen or fake identities to get driver's licenses.

In Mr. Cobbs' case, the grand jury said he used a counterfeit Arkansas birth certificate and Social Security card, along with a fraudulent letter from the Social Security Administration, to acquire a license in the name of Marquis Munroe, who turned out to be a 13-year-old in Philadelphia.

Mr. Cobbs is charged with forgery, tampering with records, lying to authorities and identity theft.

In light of that investigation and an earlier one involving French driver's licenses, Attorney General Tom Corbett excoriated PennDOT earlier this year for what he called its "historic security leniency."

The grand jury said that between 2002 and 2004, state agents had repeatedly disclosed problems to PennDOT and suggested security changes to keep criminals from getting licenses.

But, Mr. Corbett said, "PennDOT officials were reluctant to make any changes that would hamper their primary mission of 'customer service.' "

A PennDOT review after the Cobbs incident revealed that thousands of customers were issued licenses with unverified Social Security numbers at Philadelphia license centers. The grand jury said it found that PennDOT licenses and ID cards had been issued based on fake birth certificates and other documents submitted by customers, including hundreds of criminals.

The problem is statewide, the grand jury said, although mostly focused on Philadelphia license centers.

The 45 people charged by Mr. Corbett's office are mostly "recidivist violent criminals" with "rap sheets of staggering length," said the grand jury.

Its report also said that the PennDOT employees who issued the licenses overrode existing procedures for verifying Social Security numbers because they were pressured by management to process customers within 15 minutes.

In some cases, the grand jury also said, the employees weren't trained properly or trained at all.

"This grand jury has been outraged," the report said, "at the historic security laxity and lack of concern on the part of PennDOT."

PennDOT Deputy Secretary Kurt Myers said last week that he disagreed with the grand jury's assessment of its security measures and said the agency is able to meet its goal of customer service and protection against fraud.

"While customer service is important," he said, "we've never put customer service ahead of validating that someone is who they say they are."

But he acknowledged that the agency needed to address problems highlighted in the grand jury report. In June, a month after the report came out, PennDOT, the state police and Mr. Corbett's office set up a "working group" that meets regularly in an attempt to shore up security lapses.

As for Mr. Cobbs, it's unclear whether he is cooperating with DEA in its investigation of other ring members.

Federal prosecutors filed two sealed motions in July and the judge issued a sealed order, but the U.S. attorney's office will not comment beyond the public record. Government motions requesting leniency for cooperation are usually filed after a plea or sentence, not before.

Mr. Cobbs' lawyer, Stephen Jory, didn't return phone or e-mail messages last week.

During the Oct. 26 plea, prosecutors said Mr. Cobbs, who uses several aliases, bought his Piper Aerostar from someone in Alabama in May 2004 for $290,000. He purchased the plane in the name of a company called Pacific Designers of Beverly Hills, Calif., which is owned by his girlfriend.

A month or so later, prosecutors said, Mr. Cobbs began making cross-country drug runs from Compton Airport, near Los Angeles, to Philadelphia, stopping at small airports along the way to rest and refuel.

On Dec. 18, 2004, he left Compton and flew to Blanding, Utah, and then to Cameron, Mo., before crashing at Wheeling, according to the plea. He hitchhiked to a hotel, registering under a fake name, and then made calls to California and Philadelphia trying to arrange for someone to get him.

Cohorts from Philadelphia picked him up and drove him there. The plea information doesn't indicate when he fled to Mexico, but the charges say the conspiracy continued through April 5, 2005, nearly four months after the plane crashed. The conspiracy count includes the effort to get him out of the country, but so far no one else has been charged.

As part of his plea, Mr. Cobbs also agreed to forfeit $18,000 seized from an account that he maintained under a fictitious company name, Builders Plus Management of Northridge, Calif. He also agreed to forfeit $25,000 and any other assets that agents uncover in the future.

Mr. Cobbs was also indicted this month in California on a federal charge of flying without the required "airman certificate" issued to private pilots by the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA had taken enforcement action against him several times for reckless flying and other violations, including one incident at the Allegheny County Airport in 2003, and revoked his certificate in May 2004.

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