Metro-North scandal
Photo: Andrés Correa Guatarasma / Courtesy
A Metro-North worker resigned last month after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) caught him having sex with a woman at a railroad station in New York while he was being paid overtime, according to a new report.
Investigators from the MTA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), Carolyn Pokorny, observed the unidentified machinist – a 25-year veteran in the company – carrying an unauthorized woman into the grounds of Croton-Harmon station (Hudson) three times last spring, according to the report.
On May 16, IGO employees observed the man and woman “kissing and having intimate contact” in a railroad depot “Behind the open door” of her interlocutory, according to the document.
intimacy in the train yard, 10 to 15 feet from the “clearly” tracks labeled as “No entry except authorized vehicles”, it happened in the middle of the man’s overtime shift and lasted 77 minutes, according to GPS data issued by MTA teams.
Thirteen days later, investigators at the Pokorny office observed that the man was taking the woman to the same Metro-North facility for “An extended lunch”, according to the report.
Investigators surprised the driver by taking longer lunch breaks than is allowed outside the MTA property on five other occasions, including a meeting with the same woman that lasted more than three hours.
After several irregularities, he was charged with disciplinary charges in December and resigned after a disciplinary hearing on Jan. 20, he reported New York Post.
“Metro-North has zero tolerance for the theft of time or appropriation of resources for personal use,” MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said. “This employee was suspended without pay and subsequently resigned, and we are reviewing ways to improve accountability.”
The OIG has launched an iron chase against overtime scammers, amid the long deficit accentuated by the drop in traffic during the pandemic.
In December, five current and former employees of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) were charged with federal fraud having accumulated “overtime” that collectively generated them more than $ 1 million, Although they did not work.