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.
