RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – A state employee has been fired from the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles for destroying official documents and failing to update and process thousands of records.

CBS North Carolina Investigates uncovered details behind a backlog of court actions not being properly processed by the DMV.RELATED: Thousands have NC driver’s license revoked due to DMV error, county clerk says

The Department has a system that does not automatically apply all court decisions to a driver’s record. Every night, the Administrative Office of the Courts will send over an error report with convictions that DMV employees have to manually update.

CBS North Carolina Investigates found out those records were not being entered into the system – creating a massive backlog.

County clerks say the now updated backlog caused thousands of drivers to have their licenses wrongfully revoked.

The Department denied that and issued a statement saying a “technical glitch” was to blame for the wrong record-keeping.

The DMV admits however, the improper record keeping allowed drivers who shouldn’t have been driving to be on the road.

“We are here to help citizens update their records to accurately reflect court decisions and the re-instatement of driving privileges. As soon as we discovered these inaccuracies in our records system, we began working to correct affected driver records and fix the technical glitch that contributed to the issue,” said former DMV Commissioner Kelly Thomas.

After receiving a tip, CBS North Carolina filed a public records request in April 2016 asking for emails from Thomas and a few others who may have been involved in the backlog.

It took the Department nine months to send any records.

Not only did CBS North Carolina did not receive Thomas’ emails, the ones actually received were from two employees they initially told us did not work for the Department of Transportation, which oversees the DMV.

When asked about the backlog in June, Thomas said, “I don’t think it’s very big at all.”

Kelly said the situation was under investigation.

But an email in March called the backlog “significant” and said it would take “all hands on deck” to fix.

The emails also revealed the Department was more 200 days behind on applying DWI convictions to driver’s records and more than a year behind on applying other convictions.

The Administrative Officer in charge of updating the records, Melissa Forsyth, was fired.

CBS North Carolina Investigates requested her termination letter which shed light into what happened.

The letter says Forsyth was fired for destruction of official agency documents in violation of NCGS132-3 and failure to process over 10,000 court actions.

It says other employees discovered 225 pages of discarded unprocessed convictions, torn into quarter pieces.

The DMV says more than 3,200 employee work hours were required to complete a 27-month audit of the backlog.

A total of 29,533 record entries were completed by the audit team resulting in 5,105 additional court actions to be added to customers’ driving records. The letters says 59 probations were added and 742 mandatory suspensions were added.

The NCDOT Office of the Inspector General investigated the issue.

CBS North Carolina Investigates has repeatedly asked for a copy of the investigation report, but the DMV still has not provided it.

Thomas is no longer DMV commissioner. A NCDOT spokesman says he left on Jan. 13, 2016 as his term of appointment had ended.

The deputy secretary for communications is also no longer with the DMV.

CBS North Carolina Investigates is told she left for the same reason.

CBS North Carolina Investigates is still waiting on a public record request to be fulfilled as well as access to the investigation report.

CBS North Carolina Investigates has requested a follow up meeting with the acting DMV Commissioner Eric Boyette, who is also the chief information officer for the DOT.

“During the previous administration, it came to light that the Division of Motor Vehicles failed to properly update some driver records with information from the Administrative Office of the Courts. The NCDOT Office of Inspector General fully investigated this matter, and the report will be released this week. We are reviewing the report, and our team is making changes to our processes to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.” Boyette said in a statement