A man who collected hefty sums for coaching retiring LIRR employees on how to score disability benefits for often fake injuries was arrested today for his role in the rampant LIRR-disability scam.

LIRR creep Fred Kreuder, not to be confused with Nightmare on Elm Street creep Freddy Krueger, was charged with receiving a reward for official misconduct, a felony, and official misconduct, a misdemeanor.

Kreuder, a 20-year LIRR vet from Bellmore, Long Island, reportedly charged $1,000 to help an employee get a pension. According to Newsday, the first $100 was in the form of a donation to the Babe Ruth teen baseball squad he coached.

The former pension office manager for the railroad, Kreuder would steer clients to a doctor he knew would rubber-stamp the disability application. He’s hit with misconduct because he conducted such business on company time–and on an LIRR computer, no less.

Newsday says Kreuder had been flagged for lucrative pension-counseling in the past:

Kreuder was suspended without pay by the railroad Monday, according to a statement released by the LIRR. He had been suspended with pay from his $95,000-a-year job last month when his alleged actions first surfaced during a hearing Cuomo held in Old Westbury on possible pension abuses by LIRR employees.Kreuder has been working as a budget analyst - supervising one other employee - since being moved from his role as pension office manager in June 2005 when he was found to be inappropriately counseling employees on how to obtain pensions, the railroad said.

If convicted, he faces a maximum of between 1 and 4 years in prison.

The New York Times, which has owned the LIRR-Disability story, has more here.

The icing on the cake of the NY Times’ September expose about LIRR retirees living on falsified disability claims was the free golf. How do these “disabled” railroad workers spend their endless free time? By enjoying golf on state-park golf courses–on the public’s dime.

That may end, reports the Times.

The laws and regulation governing the passes do not mention railroad workers with occupational disabilities, Eileen Larrabee, a spokeswoman for the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said on Thursday. “They made a leap at some point along the line.”

The parks agency will decide in the coming weeks of it rescinds the railroad guys’ passes or takes other action, says the paper.

The history of park passes for the disabled dates back to a 1978 law that allowed those who were blind or unable to walk, as well as amputees and disabled war veterans, to enter the parks–and, if they were able to, golf–for free.

The law didn’t say anything about railroad workers with phony bad backs and knees.

Finally, I appreciated that an article about golf was written by a guy named Duff Wilson.

Fearing that too many riders thought “Slippery Rail” was the reason LIRR workers gave for their bum knees and sore backs on their disability forms, the MTA issued printouts on Metro-North yesterday informing riders of the autumnal peril alternately known as Slippery Rail and Slip-Slide.

“This condition is created by a slimy substance left by crushed leaves on our rails that gets even more slippery and slimy after it rains,” it reads. “When a train attempts to speed up or slow down, this gelatinous “slime” can cause the wheels to slip or slide along the rails. In severe cases the train will automatically make an emergency stop, because the on-board computer system perceives “slip-sliding” as excessive speed.”

Slipping-sliding cars get flat wheels, the MTA explains, the cars are taken out of service to make the wheels round again, and riders are jammed into sometimes half the number of cars as is normal.  

The “ditto,” as we called them several decades ago, then explains the various measures the MTA is employing to combat Slippery Rail, such as reprogramming the software of the M7 fleet to allow the braking system to adjust to slip-slide conditions, reducing speeds through leafy patches, using rail-washers and scrubbers to remove dead leaves from tracks, and also shooting sand onto the tracks to make them grippier. (Yes, we just made up “grippier.”)

These measures actually made Slippery Rail a non-factor last year. (If I recall, the leaves started falling much later last year.) Will Metro-North win the battle again this year?

Long Island Railroad management sold tips on getting bogus disability claims OK’d to railroad workers, reports today’s NY Times.

A far-reaching investigation into the legitimacy of disabilities at the Long Island Rail Road took a new turn on Monday as witnesses at a state hearing said that L.I.R.R. managers had improperly provided inside help to workers seeking both federal and private disability insurance payments.

At the hearing here on Long Island, called by New York’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, state investigators produced an e-mail message from an L.I.R.R. official who, they said, sold advice while on the job on how to get disability payments, including such fine points as paying a doctor in cash for a medical evaluation, the best time to retire and how to avoid outside scrutiny.

LIRR workers have received around $250 million in claims since 2000. Ultimately taxpayers foot the bill.

“There appears to have been a cottage industry, if you will, that developed to expedite the granting of disability benefits,” Cuomo said. “This poses a classic scam on the taxpayer in my opinion — a complicated program administered by a number of different agencies and a concept that this is no one’s money.”

If Walt Bogdanich and his crew don’t get a Pulitzer for their work on the dodgy LIRR employee claims, I’m donning full conductor gear–train belt buckle and all–and jumping into the Hudson in February.

The NY Times’ latest dive into the LIRR employee scam reveals that consultants actually extracted large sums from LIRR workers to coach them on how to score disability checks for the rest of their lives.

Of particular interest to investigators is a small group of disability consultants and physicians who have helped the L.I.R.R. attain the dubious distinction of having the nation’s highest rate of disabled retirees even while it was earning awards for employee safety. The New York Times reported in September that nearly all of the railroad’s career employees retire early and file for disability.

One consultant, Marie T. Baran, ran the board’s Long Island office until she quit two years ago and began selling advice to rail workers on how to navigate the system of which she had been a part. Other disability advisers are prominent former union leaders, including one who once represented labor on the board of the L.I.R.R.’s parent agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

How rampant was “disability” among LIRR workers? Funny you should ask.

From 2001 through 2007, Metro-North Railroad, which serves commuters north of New York City, had 32 cases of disabling arthritis or rheumatism, compared with 753 at the L.I.R.R, which has a work force of similar size and composition.

The Times notes that consultants got about $1000 for helping LIRR staffers fill out the 15-page application for disability.

The Times had this Friday: the federal Railroad Retirement Board, which approves disability payments for any LIRR veteran who can probably utter and spell his name, may soon require that these train workers actually see legit doctors who can vouch for their disabled condition.

The Retirement Board’s inspector general, Martin Dickman, said an independent screening “will not only ensure proper medical review, it may also identify possible instances where there is collusion between the applicant and the doctor.”

It’s sort of funny how it only took a little nudge from the New York governor, the attorney general, a small army of NY Times reporter, and of course those pesky folks at Trainjotting (uh, joke) to get the Retirement Board to actually consider real medical screenings for LIRR workers claiming injuries.

Apparently one hardly even had to bother with the paperwork in order to start collecting disability:

In his memo to the board, dated Oct. 10, Mr. Dickman also criticized railroad employers for not returning forms requesting accurate job descriptions of those seeking disabilities.

“A review for calendar year 2007 shows that these forms were sent to railroad employers for 2,566 occupational decisions,” the memo stated. “The forms were returned to the agency for less than 5 percent of these requests.”

Calling for an emergency meeting yesterday to address the ridiculous number of LIRR retirees living on fat disability pensions, LIRR president Helena Williams announced the creation of an “internal compliance unit…to work more closely with the federal government; additional ethics training for managers and union employees,” and help from Congress in the form of reform legislation.

Regarding “ethics training,” all LIRR employees will receive training geared towards “stressing the obligation of all LIRR employees as public servants to safeguard public funds and to comply with both the letter and spirit of the law” regarding disability. In short, don’t claim a sore back if your back isn’t really, truly sore.

The compliance unit will “act as a watchdog,” said Williams, and will review all correspondence from the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board, which had signed off on all the dodgy disability claims.

Williams also encouraged all Dudley Dorights to use the MTA Inspector General’s toll free number to blow the whistle on fraudulent coworkers.

LIRR president Helena Williams will step to the podium in Queens this afternoon to outline “a series of reform measures” meant to combat the ridiculously high rate of retiring railroad folk collecting fat disability payments.

Williams will speak at 1 p.m. from LIRR headquarters in Jamaica Station. The reform plan is “aimed at making sure that only those employees who deserve a federal disability pension receive one,” says the railroad.

Williams claimed absolutely no culpability whatsover to the rampant fraud in a recent statement:

No one from the Long Island Rail Road or from the MTA was involved in the granting of these disability pensions by the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board. The LIRR has no direct representation on the federal board that grants these disability pensions for the railroad industry nationwide.

We’ll see if she gets to hold onto her $288,000-a-year job.

[image: NY Times]

On Day Three of the Long Island Railroad/Employee Disability Scam Scandal (LIRREDSS), federal agents raided the Westbury offices of the Railroad Retirement Board, the shady federal organization that signs off on railroad employees’ dodgy disability claims.

What a scene it must’ve been–career LIRR workers standing on line with their claims, perhaps rubbing “sore” knees and backs for effect, just as investigators burst through the doors. The NY Times reports that they left with nine file boxes and five personal computers.

The feds were good enough to alert the media, it seems. Times lensman Uli Seit has a great shot of a stone-faced fed pushing a huge dolly full of files like a freshman footballer hitting the blocking sled. Seit’s photo reveals another photographer shooting the scene from behind the agent.

[Nice to see Mitt Romney keeping busy after his failed presidential bid…click on to enlarge]

The Times says Gov. Paterson is pushing attorney general Cuomo to blow this thing wide open, and has tapped Congress in the fight as well.

The raid came two days after The New York Times reported that nearly all career employees of the railroad — from 93 percent to 97 percent of retirees every year since 2000 — retire early and soon after begin getting disability payments from the federal agency. The retirement board almost never turns down a claim, and since 2000 has paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars in disability checks to former Long Island Rail Road workers, The Times found.

Responding to the findings, Gov. David A. Paterson immediately directed the state attorney general to begin a wide-ranging inquiry into disability claims at the railroad. On Tuesday, he called on Congress to aid in that investigation.

I think the true victim in all of this, besides taxpayers like you and me and poor bastards on fixed incomes and menial wages footing the bill, are the LIRR workers with legitimate claims, and LIRR workers in general–all of whom are being besmirched by this ugly scandal. Surely plenty of them aren’t claiming fake injuries for pay, and are simply going about their jobs each day like good Americans do.

I can’t imagine LIRR president Helena Williams, who in the most recent Times article asserts that the LIRR should divorce the Railroad Retirement Board and throw its retirement business to the Social Security system, keeping her job amidst all of thus. Despite her claims that she was powerless to fight the rampant fraud going on, it happened on her watch, and it’s not hard to imagine that a phone call to the governor, attorney general or local Congressperson would’ve gotten the ball rolling on changes to an egregiously faulty system.

[image: NY Times]

A very special dedication to every not-that-disabled former LIRR employee who’s enjoying a nice round of golf on a pleasant fall day as the rest of us working stiffs work.

I’ve Been Shirking on the Railroad

I’ve been shirking on the railroad

All the live-long day.

I’ve been shirking on the railroad

Sometimes grabbin’ four days’ pay

Don’t you feel your back a-achin’

Pullin’ at those heavy-ass doors

Don’t you feel your knees a-smartin’

Punchin’ tickets for commuter bores

Retirement Board won’t you sign

Retirement Board won’t you sign

Retirement Board won’t you sign

My for-or-orm?

Retirement Board won’t you sign

Retirement Board won’t you sign

Retirement Board won’t you sign my form

Someone’s on the golf course with Edward

Someone’s on the golf course I know

Someone’s on the golf course with Edward

Sure beats makin’ trains go

Singin’ fee, fi, fiddly-i-o

Fee, fi, fiddly-i-o-o-o-o

Fee, fi, fiddly-i-o

Livin’ large on taxpayers’ dough

 [Edward Koerber image NY Times]