Two former Metro workers who stole some $500,000 from Metro fare machines in less than two years were sentenced Friday to more than two years each in federal prison, plus ordered to pay $472,679.
Former Metro Transit Police Officer John Vincent Haile, 52, of Woodbridge received a 37-month sentence, the equivalent of just over three years, while former revenue technician Horace Dexter McDade, 58, of Bowie was sentenced to 30 months, or two and a half years in prison.
Both will also serve three-year terms of supervised release after their prison time, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The sentence was far less than it could have been, though, as each could have faced as much as 30 years in prison and been forced to pay back up to twice the amount they stole, or about $1 million. The two men pleaded guilty in March.
Their scam came to an end when they were arrested Jan. 18 after they drove away from a Marriott hotel parking lot with four bags of coins between them totaling more than $8,000. Authorities began investigating after the FBI received a tip in September about a man in a police uniform regularly driving a Jaguar to a Woodbridge gas station to buy scratch-off lottery tickets with $1 coins.
Court records say the two stole nearly every day, dumping bags in coins in the underbrush near the Alexandria hotel until they could recover it each night.
Haile used the money to buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of lottery tickets at a time, with $500 bags of coins. He spent $28,000 on tickets between October and December at one convenience store alone, court records show. He told the court he is undergoing treatment for gambling addiction.
McDade also admitted to buying lottery tickets. But he also used the coins at Home Depot and Lowe’s and to pay off account balances at Zale’s jewelry store, court records show. He also socked some away in the bank.
Both men were fired from Metro after their arrests. A revenue division supervisor was reassigned after their arrests and left the transit agency by his own accord.