NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — An MTA supervisor avoided paying more than $101,000 in tolls and penalties by covering up his license plate, the agency’s Inspector General said Monday.
MTA Inspector General Carolyn Pokorny’s office launched an investigation after someone sent in an anonymous tip claiming an unnamed Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority Assistant General Superintendent was “bragging to his co-workers” about avoiding thousands of dollars worth of tolls while driving, Pokorny said in a press release.
The probe found that the supervisor had been driving without a front license plate, according to the release.
He had also been driving with a “cloudy, semi-clear plastic cover” on his rear license plate, making it impossible for MTA Bridges and Tunnels toll cameras to read it, the release said.
The supervisor managed to avoid paying more than $101,000 in “significant tolls and associated penalty fees” to MTA Bridges and Tunnels, the New York State Thruway Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the investigation found.
The supervisor was demoted and slapped with a 12-week suspension without pay, as well as a settlement fine of more than $10,000, the release said.
“MTA management is supposed to model ethical behavior, not violate it,” Pokorny said in a statement.
“That a supervisor would unscrupulously steal toll dollars from New Yorkers — and have the nerve to brag about it on the job — is a slap in the face to the rest of the dedicated, hardworking MTA employees who keep New York moving," she added.
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