News: $1 Billion Estimated in Fraud on LI
(Long Island, N.Y.) The FBI is currently investigating former workers of the Long Island Rail Road for possible fraudulent claims to disability benefits. Reports stated that authorities and federal prosecutors on the case have stated that the investigation is ongoing and involves a decade-long scheme from several ex-employees. At least eleven people are involved in the case, including two doctors and ten Long Island residents.
The hundreds of disability claims had been made to a government agency known as the federal Railroad Retirement Board. A billion dollars was the expected total amount of dollars spent on fraudulent claims to disability benefits. Seven former Long Island Rail Road employees have been charged, calling many others into question.
Some of the claims have dated back to 1998, and sources stated that the benefits given to former Long Island Rail Road employees were at a rate twelve times greater than that of Metro-North workers. The head of the Railroad Retirement Board has been accused of preparing potential recipients of disability benefits for making false claims. The Railroad Retirement Board is funded by payroll and employer taxes.
According to reports, federal prosecutors have been asking those involved in the scheme to come forward while urging them to “find us before we find you.” Leniency has not been guaranteed to those who do so in either the ongoing civil or criminal cases. A complaint of over seventy pages long against the accused employees was presented in a New York City federal court.
If convicted, the guilty parties could face a maximum of twenty years in prison for conspiracy to commit heath care and mail fraud. The doctors involved in the case are Long Island residents in their early sixties who have been suspected of getting rich while approving almost all of the Long Island Rail Road applicants they saw, which amounted to an estimated eight-six percent of the claims made in over a decade. The employees, whose ages were between fifty and fifty-five, had typically worked heavy overtime to maximize their pensions.
The FBI used undercover tapes, statistical analysis, and video surveillance techniques to gather evidence against the workers who have the option of retiring at fifty. Long Island Rail Road Employees wishing to do so can opt for partial pensions after twenty years of work instead of waiting until sixty-five for a full pension. One worker, who is an avid golfer and tennis player, is accused of receiving over six figures a year in pension and disability; another worker retired as a signal operator at fifty-five but has participated in a four-hundred-mile bike tour while on disability.
