Investigative Reports

The official did not comply with the Ethics Pledge by participating in a meeting with a former employer within 2 years of the official’s appointment.

An Amtrak Service/Train Attendant based in New Orleans was terminated from his position on August 18, 2022, following his administrative hearing. Our investigation found that the former employee violated company policies by engaging in outside self-employment while on a medical leave of absence.

An Amtrak service attendant based in Seattle resigned from his position on August 17, 2022, as a result of our investigation into his alleged abuse of COVID-19 Leave. Our investigation found that the employee was placed on COVID-19 Leave on July 8, 2022, a type of leave that is granted for a 5-day period. However, the employee failed to produce proof of a COVID-19 diagnosis, as required by the company, and remained away from work for 30 days. Our investigation found that the employee was working as a travel advisor for a travel agency at the time of his resignation.

A former NPS employee claimed to be teleworking full time for the NPS while they were a full-time employee for a State.

Alain Galette, a resident of Miami, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, to one count of wire fraud on August 4, 2022, in relation to his application for a Payroll Program Protection (PPP) loan and in obtaining an Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) in the amount of $149,900. The PPP loan was in the amount of $163,577 but was denied. Our investigation found that Galette used an invalid social security number and included other false information on the PPP and EIDL applications. Upon receipt of the EIDL funds, Galette did not use the money for authorized purposes.

Earl Kendricks, Jr., a resident of Roseville, Michigan, was sentenced on August 3, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $49,332 in restitution, of which $870 is payable to Amtrak. On April 19, 2022, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and making a false statement involving the acquisition of a firearm. Kendricks was sentenced to 30 months in prison for each charge, to be served concurrently. Our investigation found that Kendricks used stolen credit card information to purchase Amtrak tickets and then cancelled the tickets and received Amtrak vouchers, which he then sold on eBay for his own personal gain. The scheme caused the company to issue more than $49,000 in fraudulent ticket vouchers. Our investigation also found that Kendricks made false statements to a licensed firearms dealer to purchase an assault rifle for Christian Newby, who was a wanted fugitive at the time, and a defendant in this investigation.

The OIG investigated an allegation that an attorney at the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (BVA) may have accessed a BVA senior executive’s government email account without permission, including email concerning a personnel matter involving the attorney. The complaint further alleged that the attorney should have known that access to the materials in the executive’s email account was not authorized. The attorney has since left VA employment.After considering the extensive evidence collected, including analyses of audit logs, mailbox content, testimonial evidence, Office of Information and Technology (OIT) service tickets, and a forensic analysis of the attorney’s government-furnished laptop, the OIG did not substantiate that the attorney ever accessed the executive’s email or that the attorney was aware that such access rights had been assigned to them. Moreover, the OIG team could not dismiss the possibility that the attorney’s unauthorized access privileges were the result of an error made by either OIT staff or the executive. Based on these findings, the OIG made no recommendations.

A former Amtrak train attendant based in New Orleans, Louisiana, was sentenced in the Eastern District of Louisiana on July 25, 2022, to three years’ probation and 12 months’ home confinement for theft of government funds and making false statements. In addition, he was ordered to pay restitution of $64,874.64 to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and $22,725 to the Louisiana Workforce Commission. Our investigation found that the former employee made false statements to the SBA and fraudulently obtained $89,583 in pandemic-related relief loans funded through the Paycheck Protection Program. He also fraudulently applied for, and received, unemployment benefits through the Louisiana Workforce Commission despite being fully employed by Amtrak at the time. The employee was terminated from the company on April 4, 2022.

Robert Joseph, a podiatrist based in Los Angeles, California, was sentenced in U.S. District Court, Central District of California, on July 25, 2022, to two years’ probation for conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Joseph was also ordered to pay a fine of $10,000 and a money judgment forfeiture in the amount of $332,500. Our investigation found that Joseph prescribed unnecessary compounded medications to patients without their knowledge. As a result of the scheme, Amtrak’s insurance providers were fraudulently charged approximately $22,000.

An Amtrak Red Cap/Baggageman based in Chicago was terminated from employment on July 21, 2022, following his administrative hearing. Our investigation found that the former employee violated company policies by failing to remit parcel check revenue for cash paying customers on 22 occasions between March 18 and March 26, 2022 and kept the cash for himself instead. We also found that he falsified a parcel check form in order to remit only half of the revenue he collected and was observed putting the cash in his pocket.

An Amtrak lead service/train attendant based in New Orleans, Louisiana, resigned from her position on July 18, 2022, prior to her administrative hearing. Our investigation found that the former employee violated company policies by engaging in outside employment while on a medical leave of absence. During an interview with our agents, the former employee admitted she had been employed as a full-time contract driver for a trucking company while on medical leave from the company.

An Amtrak conductor based in Sanford, Florida, was suspended from his position without pay, in lieu of termination, on July 15, 2022, following his administrative hearing. The employee was held out of service without pay for a total of 68 days from May 26, 2022, through August 1, 2022. Our investigation found that the employee violated company policies by attempting to sell high-security switch keys and other assorted railroad keys on Facebook Marketplace, including keys used by Amtrak.

This administrative investigation addressed concerns of possible misconduct by two leaders responsible for overseeing medical facility staff training on implementing VA’s new multibillion-dollar patient electronic health record system. The investigation stemmed from a prior OIG review at the initial operating site (the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington), during which OIG healthcare inspectors experienced significant challenges in receiving timely, complete, and accurate information from the then VA Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization’s (OEHRM’s) Change Management group.The investigation revealed that while the Change Management leaders did not intentionally seek to mislead the OIG, their lack of diligence resulted in delays and misinformation being submitted that impeded oversight efforts. Failures included (1) submitting a training evaluation plan without disclosing to the OIG that it was in its “infancy” and had not been fully implemented or even approved; (2) delaying production of requested proficiency check datasets that should have been available under the submitted evaluation plan; (3) instead providing three summary statistics with errors that doubled the training proficiency test pass rate from initial findings of 44 to 89 percent, without the requested methodology; (4) overlooking red flags indicating that all failing scores had in fact been removed from reported rates (with the total number of proficiency tests dropping by more than 3,000 in submitted recalculations); and (5) failing to disclose concerns regarding data reliability and that data were excluded.VA concurred with the OIG’s two recommendations for providing guidance to staff in the since-reorganized Electronic Health Record Modernization and Integration Office on providing timely, complete, and accurate responses to OIG staff and ensuring direct staff-level communications with OIG personnel are not impeded. VA also agreed to consider whether administrative action is appropriate given the conduct and performance of the two Change Management leaders.

The USPP supervisor used his GOV to drive to and from his approved outside employment on 10 occasions in 2021, in violation of law and USPP policy.