Audit: LIRR foreman used duplicate ID to get paid while home

A Long Island Rail Road foreman has resigned from his job following charges that he used an unauthorized duplicate LIRR employee ID card to have co-workers punch him in and out of work even when he was home, and then lied to investigators to cover up his theft of nearly $3,200 in unearned wages, according to an MTA watchdog report.

The report from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Inspector General Daniel Cort's office details how the unnamed LIRR foreman was caught lying about being at work at a Ronkonkoma rail yard on 14 different dates between November 2022 and January 2023.

In nine of those instances, investigators found "fraudulent swipes" of an LIRR identification and access card at a time clock "when video surveillance showed that the Gang Foreman had not yet arrived at the Yard or had already left the Yard."

At the center of the case are unauthorized, duplicate railroad access cards being used by "certain LIRR employees," according to the report, which notes that the cards are "the subject of another ongoing inquiry."

The LIRR, in its formal response to the investigation, said it removed the worker from service without pay in July and pursued disciplinary charges against him. The worker resigned in October while those charges were still pending, according to the LIRR.

The railroad said it is seeking to recover $3,196.10 in "compensation paid to the Gang Foreman for time he did not work." According to the report, the foreman logged nearly 50 hours of unearned wages.

"If you want to work at the MTA, stealing taxpayers’ money is not an option," LIRR president Robert Free said in a statement.

The foreman’s union, the Independent Railway Supervisors Association, did not respond to requests for comment.

The cards temporarily replaced a biometric timekeeping system adopted in 2019 by the MTA following charges of overtime abuse by some workers. That system required employees to scan a finger to document their location and hours worked. But just months after the rollout of the $37 million biometric timekeeping system, the MTA in May of 2020 suspended the finger scanning function because of sanitary concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The MTA resumed finger scanning of employees at all its agencies, including the LIRR, this past summer, authority officials said. The LIRR also sent a memo to employees reminding them that having more than one ID card is a policy violation, and has stepped up on-site audits of time clock usage, according to the MTA.

Initially, the foreman told investigators that he kept his sole LIRR ID card at his desk, and "admitted that if he was running late, he would have someone swipe him in." But, because the foreman would have needed his card to get through a security gate at the yard, investigators determined "there had to be a second card."

"The Gang Foreman eventually admitted that he did, in fact, have an unauthorized duplicate card," which he got from another LIRR employee while attending a coworker’s retirement party, according to the report.

"The LIRR employee was ‘pushing out’ unauthorized duplicate cards and offered one to the Gang Foreman free of charge in case he ‘needed it,’" according to the report, which noted that the foreman kept the extra card at his desk at the Ronkonkoma yard, where he oversaw employees who inspect, repair, and clean train cars.

"The Gang Foreman admitted, ‘It wasn’t the right thing to do,’" the report said.

Cort’s office launched a second probe into the foreman earlier this year that found that he lied to investigators and "provided fraudulent documentation" in an attempt to corroborate false claims that he notified supervisors about mental health issues that led him to come in to work late, leave early or take extended breaks.

Investigators found that the foreman, in June of this year, created documents made to look like emails sent to his bosses in November 2022, according to the report.

The report did not address whether the employees who swiped the foreman's card for him when he was not there faced any disciplinary charges. The railroad did not respond to a question about whether those workers were disciplined.

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.