Investigative Reports

Michael Devine, a former Fire, Life and Safety Assistant Supervisor based in New York, was found guilty on March 15, 2023, of one count of Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree after a three-day bench trial in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Devine created counterfeit Amtrak badges for himself and other employees and participated in a scheme with co-workers to use these fake badges and/or their official Amtrak badges to “swipe” each other in and out on Amtrak’s time and attendance machines. Devine resigned on December 10, 2021, and he is ineligible for rehire. A sentencing hearing is pending.

Under federal law, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) cannot employ individuals if they have been formally excluded from having a paid position in a federal healthcare program. Exclusions can result from an individual committing healthcare fraud, patient abuse, controlled substance violations, acts resulting in license revocation, and other misconduct as specified by federal law. The List of Excluded Individuals and Entities (LEIE) is maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. LEIE screening is meant to prevent individuals who have been found unsuited for working in a federally funded healthcare program from having access to medical facilities that need to protect their assets, patients, and information systems.The OIG matched VHA personnel pay against LEIE data for the first pay period of January 2022 and found VHA was employing four former nursing professionals excluded from having VHA positions. They had housekeeping, clerical, or support positions—not engaged in patients’ health care. Three of them were on the list because of nursing license revocation or suspension, while the fourth was convicted of healthcare fraud. When notified, VA took prompt action to terminate the employees and the OIG confirmed they are no longer with VHA. VHA leaders also outlined actions to address the process failures the OIG identified. In addition, leaders concurred with the report’s three recommendations for completing those policy and process improvements, taking additional actions to prevent violations from recurring, and conducting a one-time audit to confirm compliance with the federal law outside the review period. The OIG will continue to monitor VA’s progress until sufficient documentation has been received to close the recommendations as implemented.

A Labor Relations Specialist, based in Washington, D.C., violated policies when she shared access to folders and files on her company OneDrive account with her personal Gmail account. Many of the folders and files contained information of a sensitive nature. While our investigation found that the employee did not distribute these files beyond her Gmail account and she was taking these actions for a legitimate business purpose, she also did not obtain prior approval nor an exception from company policy, as is required. As a result of this investigation, we provided observations that may help the company better protect its data as it relates to the use of third-party accounts.Amtrak Management provided a response on March 3, 2023, stating that the employee had been counseled. In addition, the company implemented corrective action plans in response to our observations.

An Amtrak Maintenance of Way Equipment Repairman, based in Rensselaer, New York, violated company policy by regularly disabling the Lytx camera in his company-owned vehicle by replacing a functioning fuse in the camera with a blown one.The repairman admitted to disabling the camera, as well as covering the camera with a towel on a regular basis during the entire duration of his overnight shifts. During our interview with the employee, we also found inappropriate photographs on his company-owned mobile device. The employee resigned in lieu of his disciplinary hearing on March 1, 2023.

Johnathan Pena, a medical marketer based in Los Angeles, California, was sentenced on February 27, 2023, to time served and three years’ probation for conspiracy to commit health care fraud and honest services mail fraud, as well as a violation of the Travel Act. Pena was also ordered to forfeit $134,336.78.Pena brokered kickbacks and bribe payments to doctors in exchange for their referrals of compounded medications, durable medical equipment, and other health care goods to certain providers. Specifically, our investigation found that Pena worked as a marketer for TYY Consulting, Inc., to provide medically unnecessary compounded drug prescriptions to Precise Compounding Pharmacy that were reimbursed by health care benefit programs, including Amtrak’s plan. As a result of the scheme, Amtrak’s insurance providers were fraudulently charged approximately $22,000.

Ketrick Barron, a former Amtrak General Foreman, based in Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty on February 21, 2023, in U.S. District Court, District of Maryland, to one misdemeanor count of theft of government property after our investigation found that he misused an Amtrak-issued General Services Administration fuel card to fuel his personal vehicles. The total fuel purchase amounted to $6,580.20. His sentencing is pending.

OIG Investigations initiated this Special Inquiry in response to concerns that “Region II acted inappropriately and without authority with respect to performing independent spent fuel storage installation inspections,” that Region II failed to adhere to NRC policy by allowing resident inspectors who were not qualified the agency’s ISFSI inspection program to inspect ISFSIs, and that Region II deviated from the requirements in agency procedures for inspecting campaigns during which NRC licensees loaded spent fuel to dry cask storage. The OIG found that Region II improperly deviated from NRC policies when it authorized resident inspectors who were not qualified to inspect ISFSIs to inspect repeat spent fuel loading campaigns to dry cask storage. Furthermore, data from 2018 and 2019 show that collectively Region II’s resident inspectors spent only about 20 percent of the number of hours anticipated for ISFSI inspections stated in the applicable inspection procedure. The limited inspection hours charged appear to show that Region II did not accomplish all inspection requirements identified in the procedure. Region II’s actions potentially resulted in missed opportunities to adequately evaluate whether licensees met the NRC’s regulatory requirements. For example, from January 2021 to December 2022, after Region II began using properly qualified inspectors and following all the requirements in the applicable inspection procedure, those qualified inspectors identified numerous violations and other non-compliances during ISFSI inspections that could have been identified earlier. The OIG did not identify an immediate safety concern related to ISFSIs. The OIG did find, however, that Region II’s deviation from NRC policies resulted in licensees loading significant numbers of casks during repeat loading campaigns, from 2012 through 2020, that did not receive—and still have not received—adequate NRC inspections to ensure the licensees met regulatory requirements for long-term storage and retrievability.

A clerk based in Beech Grove, Indiana, resigned from employment on February 16, 2023, prior to his administrative hearing. Our investigation found that the employee violated company policies by misusing his company-owned computer and email address for his personally owned business by downloading unauthorized software onto the company’s workstation. He also used his company email during regular work hours to solicit Amtrak employees and others to join his business ventures.

A civil settlement agreement was finalized between the United States Department of Justice and an Amtrak contractor on February 14, 2023. The contractor agreed to pay Amtrak $54,567 out of retainage held by Amtrak and an additional $9,822 to the United States for overbilling overhead rates above the maximum allowed for work performed on the New Jersey High Speed Rail Improvement Program from 2013 to 2017. Separate from the civil settlement agreement, the contractor also paid Amtrak $10,561 for overbilling overhead rates on the same project during the period from 2018 to 2020.

A Systems Engineer based in Philadelphia violated policies by installing unapproved software on two company-owned computers. The software provides a method to remotely administer workstations and could potentially be used to compromise computer systems. Amtrak management responded to our report on February 10, 2023, stating that the employee had been counseled. In addition, the company implemented several corrective action plans in response to our observations in our report.