Scammers at MTA: 5 agency employees received thousands of dollars without working

The five MTA employees were believed to work tirelessly, although in reality they had fun and rest during working hours. Now they face up to 10 years in prison. Reported by New York Post.

Fraudsters in MTA

MTA overtime king Thomas Caputo and four other current and former transit agency employees were arrested on Thursday, December 3. They are accused of receiving thousands of dollars in overtime pay, even though it turned out that they did not work at all during those hours. Instead, they played bowling and relaxed away from the office, and in one case even took part in a 5-kilometer marathon.

Since the agency's employees were believed to be doing their jobs in good faith at this time, they were paid thousands of dollars in excess of their salaries for it.

The defendants - four railroad workers and one subway worker - were among the top MTA workers during the alleged fraud, the US attorney's office in Manhattan said. Each of them received overtime pay of $ 240 or more per year.

“These employees have worked very hard, not for the MTA, but on how to steal the MTA's time and money while ignoring their duty to keep the paths safe for their colleagues and passengers,” said MTA Inspector General Carolyn Pokorny, whose office helped to uncover the fraudulent scheme. "MTA employees, who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, take a lot of insolence to steal overtime as well after only part of their shift."

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A former LIRR inspector, 56-year-old Caputo made $ 2018 in 461 alone - more than any other MTA employee in the same year, including the agency's chairman.

Caputo allegedly worked a whopping 3 hours of overtime that year, averaging up to 864 hours a second shift on each of the 10 days of the year.

How the investigation was conducted

Caputo played bowling at least twice during his working hours. This was found out during the investigation, which included wiretapping of telephone conversations, monitoring of e-mail and social networks of the alleged fraudsters.

From October 11 to 12, 2018, Caputo was allegedly in Manhattan, working the usual eight-hour shift, during which, according to court documents, he began working overtime.

But during the supposed second shift, Caputo made eight phone calls from an area near Lakes Ronkonkom and Holzwil on Long Island, more than 80 km from where he was supposed to be.

Records from the village of Patchog show that Caputo played bowling there during his alleged second shift.

Caputo resigned in 2019 amid an investigation, but continued to receive retirement benefits from MTA, including $ 144 last year, according to financial filings submitted to court.

Meanwhile, 42-year-old subway maintenance inspector Michael Gundersen was caught posting pictures from his family's farm in Manalapan, New Jersey, while he said he was at work.

With taxpayer money, he also attended concerts in Atlantic City and took multi-day vacations out of state - including to Virginia, according to prosecutors.

In September 2018, Gundersen signed up for a charity 5-kilometer marathon and wrote enthusiastically that he would “love to run the race,” according to his email records. He added that he "will be there at 8:30 am" on September 30 - while he was supposed to work overtime. Telephone tapes from New Jersey indicated that Gundersen did indeed run the race when he should have been at work.

Charges were brought against three more current and former employees of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). These are 56-year-old Joseph Ruzzo, 50-year-old John Nugent, and 51-year-old Joseph Balestra.

They also left the workplace ahead of time to rest. This was found out from telephone records - the latter show that LIRR employees were miles from their workplaces.

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In 2018, Ruzzo, Nugentu and Balestra were counted overtime at 3, 365 and 2 hours per year, respectively. For this they were paid $ 918, $ 2 and $ 954, respectively, in excess of their base salaries.

Thanks to this, they were in 4th, 11th and 12th places in the list of the highest paid MTA employees in 2018.

Ruzzo, like Caputo, resigned after the fraud was exposed, and the other three defendants remain on the AIT staff.

What punishment threatens fraudsters

All five men face up to 10 years in prison for fraud if proven guilty.

On Thursday, December 3, the case was heard in federal court in Manhattan. For Gundersen and Nugent, a bail of $ 100 thousand was established, for Caputo, Ruzzo and Balestra - in the amount of $ 200 thousand.

How did this affect the work of MTA

Initially, the attention of the nongovernmental organization Empire Center for Public Policy was attracted by Caputo's soaring wages. MTA's overtime pay package grew from $ 849 million in 2014 to $ 1,4 billion in 2018.

“Today's news of the criminal charges against five current and former MTA employees for alleged overtime fraud is a reminder that New Yorkers deserve to know how the government spends every dollar. This investigation would most likely never have happened if the Empire Center had not reported the overtime spent by the MTA in April 2019, ”Empire Center CEO Tim Hoefer said after Thursday's arrests.

Hofer recalled that the transit agency is under severe cash shortages and needs federal assistance, adding: “These criminal charges are proof that the MTA and New York State officials must do some of their work to cut costs before asking New Yorkers to pay. more".

When the scheme was disclosed, MTA was accused of using an outdated “honor system” for reporting, which allowed fraudsters to get paid for hours they were not actually working.

In response, the transit service promised to continue to monitor how their employees work using a watch with a fingerprint sensor.

Overtime pay fell by about $ 2019 million in 200 compared to 2018, according to the agency.