Amtrak got taken for a ride by 119 workers in a massive $12 million scheme — but more than half of them are still on the company payroll, an internal watchdog found.
The workers ripped off Amtrak’s health plan in a kickback scam that saw them taking bribes from crooked doctors who then filed fake claims — and some employees went full mob and shook down medical providers for their cut of the cash, the company’s Office of the Inspector General said in a report released Tuesday.
“The sheer volume of employees who cavalierly participated in this scheme to steal Amtrak’s funds suggests not only a serious lapse in basic ethics, but a troubling workforce culture, at least in the Northeast region, in which blatant criminal behavior was somehow normalized,” Inspector General Kevin H. Winters said.
Some of the allegedly dirty workers — mostly located in the New York to DC region — even handed over their kids’ insurance information for the con that ran from 2019 to 2022, according to the OIG’s office.
Yet some 61 of the scammers still work at the largely taxpayer-funded railroad, the OIG’s office said.
An Amtrak spokesperson said the company is taking “swift action” to deal with all the fraudsters, adding that officials have now increased oversight and employee education to keep schemes like this from happening again.
About a dozen Amtrak employees are facing criminal charges. Seven of them have already pled guilty and are awaiting sentencing, 28 other employees retired or resigned in disgrace because of the investigation and another 30 left the company “for other reasons,” according to the OIG.
The train company’s watchdog began investigating the jaw-dropping scheme after an agent noticed unusual billing patterns, according to the OIG’s office.
Agents then discovered three New York health care providers with “questionable billings” and a high number of Amtrak employees as patients.
An undercover agent posed as an Amtrak employee in June 2021 and met with Punson Figueroa — an acupuncturist from Long Island City who told the agent her name was “Susie,” according to the OIG.
At Figueroa’s office, she had the undercover agent sign about 30 undated papers for acupuncture and physical therapy treatments, the report said. Figueroa allegedly submitted the signed papers as fraudulent claims to Amtrak’s health care provider over the next few weeks.
The undercover agent went back to Figueroa’s office the following month, and Figueroa handed them an envelope stuffed with $1,000 in cash, according to the OIG.
Two of the scams’ ringleaders — former employee Devon Burt of Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, and Hallum Gelzer, of East Orange, New Jersey — were responsible for recruiting Amtrak employees to participate, the probe found.
The pair also admitted to investigators they threatened to injure a health care provider unless Gelzer was paid his cut of thousands of dollars, according to the OIG.
Both pleaded guilty in June 2023 to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to communicate extortionate threats. As part of a plea agreement, Burt agreed to pay back nearly $1 million. Gelzer agreed to pay back about $1.66 million, according to the OIG.
Figueroa pleaded guilty to fraud last fall and was sentenced to three years of supervised release. She was ordered to pay more than $9 million in restitution, according to the OIG.
A doctor from New Jersey, Muhammed Mirza, was ordered to serve 26 months in prison for his role in the scheme. Mirza was also ordered to pay back $1.37 million when he was convicted in May 2024, according to the OIG.
A podiatrist, Michael DeNicola from New York, pled guilty in 2022 to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, distribution of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a firearm. He is awaiting sentencing, according to the OIG.
Medical biller Regina Choi from Woodside, who worked for Figueroa during the con, admitted to submitting fraudulent claims to Amtrak’s health care plan and paying kickbacks to Amtrak employees. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud but is awaiting sentencing, the office said.
The six other employees who pleaded guilty to health care fraud conspiracy charges were Rodolfo Rivera of Clayton, Delaware; Anthony Saloka of Elizabeth, New Jersey; Michael Toal of Hazlet, New Jersey; David McBrien of Levittown, Pennsylvania; Damany Walker of Irvington, New Jersey; and David Lonergan of Rockaway Park, New York, according to the OIG.
Read the full article here
