Investigative Reports

Maurice Driver, a former Amtrak lead service attendant based in Washington, D.C., was sentenced in U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, on November 6, 2024, for making false statements. He was sentenced to time served and a criminal fine of $200.
 

According to court documents, Driver was working as a Lead Service Attendant in the café car on an Amtrak train, which departed from Washington, D.C., in the afternoon of January 3, 2024, and ended in Chicago, Illinois, on the morning of January 4, 2024.
While working on that train, Driver met a passenger, spoke, and texted with the passenger, and allowed the passenger to use a vacant sleeper car on the train. On January 4, 2024, in Chicago, that passenger reported to Amtrak Police that Driver sexually assaulted her in a sleeper car on the train. Amtrak OIG then initiated an investigation of the sexual assault allegations. During an interview with an Amtrak OIG Special Agent, Driver made multiple false and misleading statements about his communications and contacts with the passenger, denying that he gave the passenger his personal phone number, texted with the passenger, and that he showed the passenger to a sleeper car. On August 8, 2024, Driver pleaded guilty to lying to a federal agent, and he was terminated from the company on October 31, 2024. He is not eligible for rehire.

The AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General (AmeriCorps OIG) conducted an investigation that found evidence that the Axiom Education and Training Center (AETC) in Machias, ME, included false information in its AmeriCorps grant application to Serve Maine, and that AETC mismanaged its AmeriCorps Digital Inclusion Initiative program.

An Amtrak customer service representative based in Oakland, California, resigned from her position on October 10, 2024, prior to her administrative hearing. Our investigation found that the former employee violated company policies by allowing individuals who were not entitled to pass travel privileges to travel on her pass. During her interview, the former employee admitted to her actions.

William Leonard and Kevin Leonard, both California residents, pleaded guilty on May 15, 2024, in U.S. District Court, Southern District of California, to conspiracy and health care fraud charges. William and Kevin Leonard were patient brokers who unlawfully brokered patients to clinical treatment facilities owned and operated by Paragon Recovery LLC. In exchange, William and Kevin Leonard received kickbacks payments. The scheme resulted in the fraudulent billing of insurance companies for services that were not performed.Previously, Stephen Reeder, an Ohio resident, pleaded guilty on January 22, 2024, to Conspiracy related to a health care fraud scheme. Reeder was the program director at Paragon Recovery, which operated a clinical treatment facility in California. Our investigation found that Reeder and others conspired to solicit, offer, and receive illegal remunerations for referrals to clinical treatment facilities. Specifically, at the direction of the owners of Paragon Recovery, Reeder caused payment to be made to William and Kevin Leonard for patients they referred to the facility. Amtrak’s insurance providers were billed approximately $1,152,000 over the course of the scheme.

An Amtrak engineer based in Raleigh, North Carolina, received a written reprimand and a 40-day suspension without pay on October 7, 2024. Our investigation found that the employee violated company policies by using the company’s trademarked logo and a picture of one of its locomotives on the website for his personal business.

We found that a former DOI Deputy Secretary failed to monitor his investments or recuse himself from a matter in which he held financial interests.

The AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General (AmeriCorps OIG) received allegations that a grantee falsely reported elevated numbers of active volunteers in its Senior Companion Program (SCP) and failed to produce required match funds. The investigation found insufficient evidence to support the allegations. However, during a self-inspection of its fiscal records during this investigation, the grantee discovered $8,434.69 was inappropriately charged to its grant between July 2020 through March 2021 and reported its findings to AmeriCorps OIG.

The AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General (AmeriCorps OIG) investigated allegations that The New Teacher Project (TNTP), New York, NY, improperly exited five AmeriCorps members (members) with 1700 hours and thus certified full time education awards for the members, despite previous denials from AmeriCorps State and National to TNTP’s request to retroactively backdate the members’ enrollment in the MyAmeriCorps Portal.