The MTA caught two employees buying “unknown merchandise” – believed to be stolen goods – from shady individuals after a member of the public reported them for allegedly drinking on the job, authorities announced Monday.
The MTA Inspector General’s Office said it launched a probe last year into the Midtown West-based workers – a man and a woman – following a complaint accusing them of boozing and buying contraband during their shifts.
Agency investigators secretly surveilled the duo – a transit maintenance supervisor and a structure maintainer – on May 18, 2022 at MTA trailers on West 44th Street and found they had been visited by four people that morning and exchanged money for goods, the IG’s office said.
The supervisor was even spotted threatening one of the visitors – by holding a knife to their neck, according to the IG’s July 2022 report made public Monday.
Inspectors confronted the workers a week later. The employees tried to deny the accusations until they were told they had been watched, prompting them to “[confess] to these activities,” the report states.
The supervisor – who had been with the MTA since 1999 – also took out 1.75-liter bottle of Dewar’s White Label Blended Scotch Whisky from his work locker and handed it to the investigator, saying he drank inside the trailer when his shift ended at 3:00 p.m., according to the report.
The agency brought disciplinary proceedings against both of the workers, who were not named in the IG’s report.
The supervisor retired on Dec. 2, 2022 as part of an agreement with the transit authority.
Disciplinary proceedings involving the structure maintainer — who’s been with the MTA since 2019 — are still ongoing.
The pair had been working on a project to replace and repair subway grates along Eight Avenue: The woman was working as a carpenter on the project, which the supervisor was overseeing, the IG’s report states.
The duo were visited five times by four different people with whom they exchanged money for goods over the course of three hours on May 18, 2022, according to the report.
At 6:28 a.m., someone holding a “plastic bag full of unknown items” came to the trailer and the structure maintainer handed them cash before she took the bag inside, investigators wrote.
Then at 7:34 a.m., someone else came by, took three items out of a bag and placed them on the trailer steps before the supervisor looked at the objects, paid the person and took the goods inside, the report claims.
Some 20-minutes later, a third person stopped by the trailer with a large bag which the woman worker took inside. The man employee then paid the person before returning the bag empty, the investigators found.
The second person came back to the trailer at 8:07 with another “unknown item” which the supervisor took inside before he “briefly [placed] the knife near the unknown individual’s neck,” the report states.
He then lowered the “small knife” but continued holding it in his hand as he walked with the person on a “busy sidewalk,” the investigators wrote.
Yet another person approached the trailer at 8:39 a.m. that morning placing two cases of beer nearby, knocking on the door and then leaving with the booze moments later when no one came to the door, according to the report.
After the May 25, 2022 confrontation by investigators, the pair were “removed” from the work site and the supervisor was required to take a blood alcohol test – though the results of the test were not disclosed in the report.
The agency opened up disciplinary proceedings into the two workers –
“The unacceptable conduct of these two individuals is a breach of the public’s confidence and a violation of MTA’s rules,” MTA Inspector General Daniel G. Cort said in a statement. “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.”
