State prosecutors have arrested a longtime Long Island Rail Road employee on corruption charges linked to the recent disability pension scandal.I'm hoping that this trickle becomes a torrent of cases as the disability scam proffered by the LIRR employees to bilk taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars must be dealt with in a meaningful and long lasting way.
Fred Kreuder has been charged with official misconduct and receiving reward for official misconduct. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced the arrest on Monday.
The 23-year employee was suspended last month by the railroad amid allegations that while on duty at the railroad, he was advising co-workers on the proper way to file disability forms after they retire.
"Today's arrest is the first time that someone is being held accountable for the culture of entitlement and systemic abuse that plagued the LIRR and Railroad Retirement Board," said Cuomo. "Moving forward, this office will continue to pursue criminal charges against any individual who facilitated such unchecked abuse, and will continue working to correct the systemic abuse in the disability benefits program."
It's also rich that no one in state government or the MTA or the LIRR thought that there was anything strange with the fact that so many LIRR employees were claiming disability after retiring. It took a New York Times investigation to root out that these employees were gaming the system on retirement to not only soak federal taxpayers through an obscure federal agency (the Railroad Retirement Board), but that they were able to turn around and get free lifetime passes to state parks and access state run golf courses for free, including the famous Bethpage courses.
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