In the case of at least one defendant, the excessive compensation he received from the MTA was equivalent to purportedly working 10 additional hours a day, every day, for 365 days. said: “Today we’ve arrested five individuals, all senior MTA employees, for their role in an incredibly blatant overtime fraud scheme. Our investigation remains ongoing.”įBI Assistant Director William F. All New Yorkers ultimately bear the burden of fraud targeting our mass transit systems, and we will continue to work tirelessly to expose and prosecute those who engage in it. As alleged, those almost impossible claims were fueled by brazen, repeated fraud, including falsely claiming to be working overtime hours while the defendants were at their homes or, in some instances, bowling. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “These defendants, senior LIRR and New York City Transit employees, allegedly made themselves some of the highest-paid employees at the entire MTA by claiming extraordinary, almost physically impossible, amounts of overtime. CAPUTO, RUZZO, NUGENT, BALESTRA, and GUNDERSEN are expected to be presented this afternoon before U.S. CAPUTO, RUZZO, NUGENT, and BALESTRA were charged in a criminal complaint unsealed today (the “LIRR Complaint”), and GUNDERSEN was charged in a separate criminal complaint unsealed today (the “NYC Transit Complaint”). Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and Carolyn Pokorny, Inspector General of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“MTA OIG”), announced today the unsealing of complaints charging THOMAS CAPUTO, JOSEPH RUZZO, JOHN NUGENT, and JOSEPH BALESTRA, four current and former longtime employees of the Long Island Rail Road (“LIRR”), and MICHAEL GUNDERSEN, a longtime employee of the New York City Transit Authority (“NYC Transit”), with federal program fraud for submitting time reports falsely claiming to have worked hundreds of hours of overtime that they did not in fact work. Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, William F.

John posterino former n haledon adress