NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Five current and former senior employees of the MTA are accused of a lucrative overtime scheme that cost the transit agency more than $1 million.
Prosecutors say the Long Island Rail Road and New York City Transit workers falsely claimed to have worked hundreds of hours of overtime while they were instead at home, on family vacation or bowling.
The alleged fraud happened in 2018.
"These defendants allegedly made themselves some of the highest-paid employees at the entire MTA by claiming extraordinary, almost physically impossible, amounts of overtime," said Audrey Strauss, acting United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. "As alleged, those almost impossible claims were fueled by brazen, repeated fraud."
Authorities say one of the defendants, identified as 56-year-old Thomas Caputo of Holbrook, claimed to have worked 3,864 overtime hours, on top of 1,682 regular hours, which would have amounted to him working approximately 10 hours of overtime every day, for 365 days, in addition to his regular 40-hour work week.
He was paid about $461,000 by the MTA, making him the highest paid employee at the agency in 2018, earning even more than the chairman of the transit agency.
The other four defendants were each paid over $240,000 in overtime, putting each of them within the top 12 highest paid employees at the MTA during 2018.
"This type of double-dealing directly contributes to rising MTA fares for the average, hardworking commuter," FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. said. "Today these individuals learned the end of this line is the federal courthouse here in Lower Manhattan."
Caputo, and the other defendants who are identified as 56-year-old Joseph Ruzzo of Levittown, 50-year-old John Nugent of Rocky Point, 51-year-old Joseph Balestra of Blue Point and 42-year-old Michael Gundersen of Manalapan, New Jersey, are each charged with one count of federal program fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.