Another LIRR worker fired in investigation into cloned employee ID cards

The Long Island Rail Road has fired another worker who admitted to possessing a cloned employee ID card that coworkers used to cover up for his absences, officials said Friday.

The termination of road car inspector Eric Smith marks the resolution of the last remaining disciplinary case against the 36 employees implicated in the ID card counterfeiting and distribution ring uncovered in a three-year investigation by the office of Metropolitan Transportation Authority Inspector General Daniel Cort, which announced the firing on social media Friday.

LIRR officials declined to comment, but confirmed Smith’s termination.

Exploiting a COVID-era health precaution that suspended the requirement that workers scan their fingers at biometric time clocks, the workers used equipment purchased on Amazon to run off duplicates of employee ID cards, then kept the extra cards at their job locations, including a Ronkonkoma facility where Smith worked, investigators said. Employees would use the cloned cards to swipe coworkers in and out when they arrived to work late, left early or took extended breaks, according to investigators.

Smith, who had worked for the LIRR since 1997, admitted to investigators that he possessed a duplicate ID card and had coworkers use it to cover for his absences on several occasions, including when he ran late because he was working at other jobs that were never authorized by LIRR managers.

Identified only by Cort’s office as "Employee 5,” Smith "claimed that if he needed to be swiped in at the beginning of his shift that he would call ‘anyone,’ and an employee would swipe him in using the card in his locker," investigators wrote in their October report.

Smith also admitted to investigators that for years he would go home for unpermitted meal breaks of 60 to 90 minutes, up to three times a week.

MTA payroll records show Smith made $164,925 in 2024, the most recent year for which data was available.

"His termination demonstrates that this type of misconduct is taken seriously and it will hopefully deter others from stealing time and ignoring the Code of Ethics," Cort said in a statement Friday.

Smith could not be reached for comment Friday. His union leader, Anthony Simon, general chairman of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, declined to comment, but has previously said the accused workers "deserve their fair shot, and then they will get their discipline accordingly."

By the time Cort’s office released a report in October on its investigation, most of the three dozen workers ensnared in the plot had already accepted disciplinary sanctions, including unpaid suspensions, demotions and wage forfeitures. LIRR President Rob Free has said the railroad sought more severe punishment for workers for whom there was "more concrete evidence."

Of the six LIRR workers whose cases were taken to an internal disciplinary trial, four chose to resign or retire early rather than risk being fired. Two of the workers — Smith and fellow road car inspector Richard Bovell — lost at their trials and were terminated.

Although only two of the 36 workers implicated in the case were ultimately fired, MTA Board member Marc Herbst, who represents Suffolk County, believes "justice was served," as many of the workers' punishments had significant implications on their pensions and other future earnings.

"While, emotionally, we all would like to fire everyone involved, realistically, that's just not possible," Herbst said, citing a collective bargaining agreement governing employee discipline. "The workforce received a black eye, unfortunately ... the good-working, hardworking men and women who come to work every day, legitimately working for the public — this is reflection poorly on them. And they don't deserve that."

Although Cort’s office referred the cloned ID card case to the Suffolk District Attorney's Office, prosecutors declined to bring charges, citing deficiencies in the evidence compiled.

The LIRR and investigators have said they cannot determine the full amount accused employees were paid for wages they didn't earn, in part because the time clocks were not monitored by security cameras and could not distinguish a real card from a fake one.

LIRR officials have said they’ve taken several measures to prevent employee wage abuse in the future, installing security cameras near time clocks and mandating regular audits of worker facilities by managers. In September 2024, the MTA reinstated the finger-scanning requirement at biometric time clocks.

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.