A pair of MTA employees were caught drinking on the job and buying potentially stolen contraband — and in one case were witnessed holding someone up at knifepoint, the MTA Inspector General (IG) said in a new report released Monday.
One of them remains employed by the MTA as her case winds through the arbitration process, and continues to pull in up to $41 an hour in taxpayer-funded wages.
“The unacceptable conduct of these two individuals is a breach of the public’s confidence and a violation of MTA’s rules,” said Inspector General Daniel Cort. “However, their actions should not cast a shadow on the tens of thousands of devoted MTA employees who diligently serve the riders and taxpayers of New York.”
The IG’s office received a tip that the two workers — a maintenance supervisor overseeing carpenters replacing subway grates on Eighth Avenue, and a structure maintainer working under the supervisor — were drinking on the job and buying stolen goods from people believed to be homeless. The IG report withheld their identities.
Inspectors from the watchdog agency surveilled the pair on three separate occasions last spring, which confirmed the tipster’s suspicions.
In the early morning hours of May 18 last year, the IG report found, both workers — a man and a woman — were witnessed paying cash to three unknown individuals in exchange for plastic bags filled with unknown items at their worksite trailer in Midtown.
Later that morning, the maintenance supervisor took an item from one of the individuals and, shortly thereafter, left the trailer brandishing a knife. The IG report alleged that the male held the knife to the person’s neck before lowering it and walking away from the area together with the shady character, continuing to hold the knife even on a busy sidewalk.
Later on, yet another unknown man showed up to the trailer, this time with two cases of beer, and knocked on the door. When no one answered the door, the man left with the booze.
A week later, inspectors returned to the Midtown work site to confront the two ne’er-do-wells, who initially denied the allegations but ultimately confessed when told they were surveilled. The supervisor even produced a handle of Dewar’s scotch, which was two-thirds empty, and admitted to drinking it — but only after the end of his shift at 3 p.m.
Both employees were removed from the worksite by their superintendent, and the supervisor was ordered to take a blood alcohol test.
Disciplinary proceedings were launched against both: the maintenance supervisor, an employee of New York City Transit for nearly a quarter-century, opted to retire in December 2022 as part of a settlement with the MTA. The structure maintainer, however, is still working for New York City Transit as her case goes through the lengthy worker arbitration process.
“NYCT employees are held to a high standard as outlined in the MTA All-Agency Code of Ethics,” said MTA spokesperson Meghan Keegan. “Reckless behavior that violates that code and the public’s trust is not tolerated.”
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