Last stop for the gravy train.
“MTA overtime king” Thomas Caputo and four other current and former employees of the transit agency were busted Thursday for allegedly reaping thousands of dollars in pay for time they didn’t actually work — and instead spent bowling, vacationing out of state and, in one case, running a 5K.
The defendants — four Long Island Rail Road workers and one subway maintenance worker — were among the MTA’s top earners in the period of alleged fraud, the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office said, thanks to annual OT payments of $240,000 or more.
“These employees allegedly worked very hard — to steal MTA time and money, ignoring their duty to keep the tracks and rails safe for their fellow workers and riders,” said MTA Inspector General Carolyn Pokorny, whose office helped unravel the alleged scheme.
“For MTA employees who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, it takes some nerve to steal overtime by only working a fraction of your shift — if at all.”
Former LIRR track inspector Caputo, 56, raked in $461,000 in 2018 alone — more than any other MTA employee that year, including the agency’s chairman, The Post previously reported.
That year, Caputo logged an unfathomable 3,864 overtime hours, averaging out to 10 hours of OT for all 365 days of the year, authorities said.
At least twice while the clock was rolling, Caputo was bowling, said prosecutors, whose exhaustive investigation into the allegedly fraud-happy fivesome included reviews of phone records, emails and social media.
From Oct. 11, 2018, into Oct. 12, Caputo was ostensibly in Manhattan working his regular eight-hour shift, followed closely by a 15-hour OT tour, according to court filings.
But during the purported second shift, Caputo engaged in eight phone calls in or around Lake Ronkonkoma and Holtsville, Long Island, more than 50 miles from where he was supposed to be, officials said.
Records from a Patchogue bowling alley show that Caputo bowled three league games — averaging a score of 196 — during his alleged second shift, according to authorities.
He allegedly hit the lanes again while he was supposed to be on the clock on March 7, bowling three games with an improved average score of 205.
Caputo retired in 2019 amid the probe, but has continued to receive pension payments from the MTA — including $144,000 in the last year, according to financial documents submitted to the court.
Meanwhile, subway maintenance supervisor Michael Gundersen, 42, was allegedly caught posting photos from his family farm in Manalapan, New Jersey, while claiming to be at work.
On the taxpayers’ dime, he also allegedly attended concerts in Atlantic City, and went on multi-day, out-of-state vacations — including to Virginia, according to prosecutors.
While the clock was running, so too was Gundersen, prosecutors allege.
In September 2018, Gundersen donated to a charity 5K event and enthusiastically wrote that he “would love to run in the race,” according to his email records.
He added that he would “be there at 8:30AM” on Sept. 30 — while he was supposed to be working the first of back-to-back overtime shifts.
Phone records from New Jersey put Gundersen around the race route while he was supposed to be at work across the Hudson, prosecutors say.
Also charged with running their own alleged OT rackets are three additional current or former LIRR employees: Joseph Ruzzo, 56, John Nugent, 50, and Joseph Balestra, 51.
They too allegedly blew off work to spend time closer to their Long Island homes, only to be done in by phone records that placed them miles away from their job sites, according to court filings.
In 2018, Ruzzo, Nugent and Balestra respectively billed for 3,365, 2,918, and 2,954 of overtime, pocketing an additional $267,000, $242,000 and $241,000 on top of their base salaries.
Those windfalls made them the fourth, 11th and 12th highest-paid MTA employees of the year, according to authorities.
Ruzzo, like Caputo, has retired since the alleged fraud, though the other three defendants remain in the MTA’s employ.
All five men face up to 10 years in prison for federal program fraud.
They were arraigned Thursday in Manhattan federal court. Bail was set at $100,000 for Gundersen and Nugent, and $200,000 for Caputo, Ruzzo and Balestra.
Thursday’s busts come after fiscal watchdog group the Empire Center in 2019 drew public attention to Caputo’s pack packet and the MTA’s swelling OT tab, which grew from $849 million in 2014 to $1.4 billion in 2018.
“Today’s news about criminal charges against five current and former MTA employees for alleged overtime fraud is a reminder that New Yorkers deserve to know how government spends every dollar. This investigation likely would have never happened if the Empire Center hadn’t blown the whistle on the MTA’s overtime spending in April 2019,” said Empire Center CEO Tim Hoefer after Thursday’s arrests.
Hoefer noted that the cash-strapped transit agency is seeking a massive federal bailout, while its largest union has proposed hiking the state gas tax to raise revenue, adding: “These criminal charges are proof that the MTA, and New York state officials, need to do their fair share to cut costs before asking New Yorkers to pay more.”
Following a series of Post articles on the Empire Center’s findings, investigations by Pokorny’s office faulted the MTA for using an antiquated “honor system” for reporting hours, letting grifters walk away with pay for time they did not actually work.
In response, transit officials pledged to roll out fingerprint-powered time clocks to track worker hours, though the effort has stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Agency records show OT spending down around $200 million compared to 2018.
MTA spokesman Tim Minton called the alleged fraud “an egregious betrayal of trust.”
“The MTA has implemented a number of aggressive overtime controls that substantially increase oversight and accountability — already resulting in a reduction of $105 million in overtime in 2019 alone and the implementation of a five-year plan to cut overtime costs by nearly $1 billion,” Minton said in a statement.
“We will continue to root out waste, fraud and abuse wherever it occurs and will continue cooperating fully with this critically important investigation.”
Attorneys for Caputo, Ruzzo and Nugent did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Gundersen’s attorney, Daniel Bibb, declined comment.
John LoTurco, who is representing Balestra, defended his client’s record in a statement.
“Joseph Balestra has been a model Long Island Rail Road employee for over 30 years. He’s also been a solid citizen, and an active member in his Long Island community as a volunteer coach for a variety of youth sports,” said LoTurco.
“He vehemently denies the charges contained in the complaint and adamantly asserts his innocence. We look forward to challenging the government’s allegations at trial.”