Cops say customer service workers stole $25,000
Metro busted four of its own this week, arresting two call center employees, a former worker and their former boss on accusations of falsely claiming hours never worked.
The agency estimates the group stole about $25,000 by logging fake hours over several months at a Prince George’s County customer service call center, Metro Transit Police Deputy Chief Erhart Olson said Wednesday.
Authorities arrested former Metro supervisor Alfred Atanga, 50, late Tuesday. Current customer information specialists Empriss Jacobs, 28, and Keesha Richardson, 32, were arrested at their jobs in Hyattsville on Wednesday, Olson said. Lakisha Gardin, a 34-year-old former customer service specialist who left Metro last month of her own accord, turned herself in Wednesday afternoon.
All face one count each of theft and conspiracy to commit theft, he said.
They staffed the agency’s customer service line that answers questions from Metro riders about transit trips. A total of 39 employees work out of the center, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said, and the average wait time for riders to have their calls answered is 1 minute and 30 seconds.
Metro’s Office of the Inspector General received a tip late last year, Olson said, then police and the inspector general spent several months investigating. A Prince George’s County grand jury indicted the four last week, Olson said.
Police believe Atanga approved hours for the three workers that they did not work on the agency’s computerized timecard system. Metro officials declined to say whether the suspects were getting paid for extra hours padded onto each day or had billed the agency for days on which they didn’t work at all.
The falsified hours allegedly occurred over several months, Olson said. The three specialists had been working for less than nine years each, but Atanga joined Metro in January 2008. He left the agency in September, limiting the potential time of his possible involvement to less than three years.
He supervised 12 workers but Olson said police are “quite confident” that no other workers were involved.
Jacobs and Richardson are on paid administrative leave while the agency conducts an internal investigation as required by the contract with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, Metro said. It is not clear how long the agency’s own investigation will take, Olson said.
