NEW YORK — A former Long Island Railroad foreman was sentenced to five months in prison on Thursday for his role in a massive overtime fraud case involving Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees.
The New York Daily News reports John Nugent, 51, pleaded guilty for his part in a case in which he claimed to work long shifts while not actually showing up. In 2018, he filed for 2,918 hours of overtime — which would be almost eight hours a day, every day of the year — and made a total of $350,000. Prosecutors couldn’t prove that all was fraudulent and only charged him with 420 hours of false charges.
Nugent was part of a group of five workers involved the overtime case [see “Digest: Five MTA employees charged …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 3, 2020]. As a foreman, he could approve his own overtime with little oversight, according to prosecutors. Two other workers have entered guilty pleas but have not been sentenced, while another is reportedly negotiating a plea deal. The only one in the group to plead not guilty, Frank Pizzonia, is scheduled for trial in March.
Totally concur. That amount of overtime screams collusion! Or conspiracy to defraud. A deep investigation is needed to determine how high up this went. When I filed for OT, my supervisor knew(and had to know) that it was justified.
Someone else must have known and seen the fraud going on, but said nothing. This is a monstrous abuse.
Send his manager(s) to jail.
Before I retired from my career, I worked in a place where overtime was budgeted and overtime was monitored. If an employee asked for more than a scattered few hours of OT it would be questioned.
This clown more than doubled his work calendar and no one noticed? A work year is 2200 hours. He charged for 2200 hours plus 2,918 hours of OT. No one noticed? What the he// kind of kickback did has managers get and why aren’t they canned? Everyone involved, if they knew but said nothing, his managers, the payroll clerks, accounting, budgeting, etc., should at least be charged with misdemeanor misconduct in public office.
I have always thought of most public sector employees as dedicated, hard-working and honest. This is the kind of stuff that makes private – sector workers go into orbit.
“I have always thought of most public sector employees as dedicated, hard-working and honest.” Charles you must be kidding. There is very little oversight in government. That is why people like public sector jobs. Basically they approve anything that is put in front of them. My mother was an administrator in the school department of the town in which she lived. Great stories around the dinner table. Some states are worse than others of course. New York was notoriously bad (pay for play) but may improve now that they have a semi-honest governor. Well, you gave me the laugh of the day.