LIRR overtime scammer: You could do the job in your sleep
Sleeping on the job is one of many benefits LIRR workers enjoy, according to a new court filing from a foreman facing prison time for an audacious overtime scam.
Joseph Balestra, 52, pleaded guilty in September in Manhattan Federal Court to conspiracy to commit federal program fraud as part of a yearslong scam to file outrageous amounts of overtime for no-show shifts.
In 2018 alone, Balestra, who worked in the LIRR’s engineering department, filed 2,954 hours of overtime on top of roughly 2,000 regular work hours, court filings show. That would mean he worked eight hours of overtime every single day of the year without any time off. The extra hours bumped Balestra’s pay from roughly $100,000 to $348,000 that year.
Balestra’s guilty plea only applied to a limited amount of overtime that his defense lawyer and prosecutors agreed was fraudulent. The foreman will forfeit $16,031, which prosecutors say represents the amount of money earned through his fraud conspiracy.
Balestra’s attorney, Matthew Keller, wrote in a letter to the court ahead of sentencing that much of the padded pay came through a well-known arrangement in which employees were considered on the clock while traveling to and from job sites for overtime shifts. He also wrote that sleeping at the work site was common practice.
“Certain conduct that may appear improper to an outsider, such as payment for sleeping onsite, or for travel time to and from an overtime shift, was in fact commonplace at the LIRR and sanctioned by often-ambiguous rules, policies, and ‘handshake agreements’ between the union and LIRR management,” Keller wrote.
The feds say Balestra and four other LIRR workers took advantage of several big-budget projects to rack up outrageous overtime. Those include the MTA’s work on the Hudson Yards development, which was built over a rail yard, and work on an interlocking track system that’s part of the agency’s long-delayed East Side Access project. The feds said the crooked workers conspired to cover for each other’s absences as they racked up undeserved overtime.
Balestra’s attorney wrote he was only needed during the beginning and end of shifts to take tracks in and out of service on the Hudson Yards project, leaving him several hours “with nothing to do” other than sleep. He was also paid overtime to drive between Long Island and Manhattan, a practice that LIRR officials have kept in place despite the ongoing case.
Former LIRR foreman John Nugent was sentenced in November to five months in prison for his role in the overtime scheme.
Two other LIRR workers — Thomas Caputo and Joseph Ruzzo — have pleaded guilty for their involvement in the scam. The fifth defendant, Frank Pizzonia, filed legal papers earlier this month indicating he plans to plead guilty.
Pizzonia, the son of convicted Gambino crime family hit man Dominick “Skinny Dom” Pizzonia, argued in court papers in August that the overtime pay scam was “widespread” at the LIRR.
The MTA is negotiating the pension payouts for the scammers, which at the LIRR is calculated based on workers’ highest paid years on the job.
“The LIRR has no tolerance for timekeeping fraud, which is a violation of the trust the public places in employees to be honest about the work they perform,” said MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan. “The LIRR is working to insure that no fraudulently gained time or compensation is supplied to the pension system thereby inflating the pension.”
Balestra is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 4. His attorney requests he serve two months in prison.