A Metro worker who was fired for running a prostitution ring run out of the Farragut North station came back to work at the transit agency as a contractor, The Washington Examiner has learned. And a Metrobus driver facing a charge of negligent homicide in connection with a deadly bus crash is still working for the agency.
They are the latest Metro employees to return to the agency after getting fired or arrested.
Pamela Goins was fired from her job as a Metro custodian in June 2008 after she and a female station manager were arrested in a sting. They were accused of using the station loudspeaker to set up a $200 sex act with an undercover cop posing as an out-of-town businessman.
But Goins returned as a temporary worker for a landscaping company at Metro for several months last summer, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel confirmed.
The contractor told Metro officials last week he was not aware it was the same person. Goins returned using the last name Silver, Stessel said. Metro uses Social Security numbers to track employees and contractors, so it wouldn’t matter which name she used, he said.
The agency also checks for criminal records for certain positions. But in this case, Goins got her record cleared of prostitution charges after agreeing to complete 40 hours of community service.
And, even so, there was nothing under Metro policy stopping her from getting hired back.
“We don’t expressly prohibit contractors who have been fired by Metro,” he said. “You might be terrible at math and be fired as an accountant but have a green thumb.”
Goins could not be reached for comment.
The agency also reinstated Ronald Taylor last summer after firing him following a deadly crash between his Metrobus and a taxi that killed a California man in 2008. An arbitration panel ruled Metro had to give him his job back. Then in April, he was charged with negligent homicide in the case, and the agency removed him, without pay, from his position as a station manager.
As of last week, though, he was back on the job as a station manager, Stessel said. His criminal case is still pending, court records show.
Taylor could not be reached; His attorney Nikki Lotze declined to comment on his changing job status with Metro. “It was obviously a tragic accident but he maintains he’s innocent of any wrongdoing,” she said.
Metrobus driver Shawn Brim also was canned after he pulled over his bus in 2009, and punched an off-duty cop dressed as McGruff the Crime Dog.
Metro fired him for violating its workplace violence policy. He was later found guilty of simple assault, court records show. But more than a year later, an arbitration panel voted that he should be reinstated to Metro.
