Former LIRR Forman Sentenced In Overtime Scam: Report

ROCKY POINT, NY — A former Long Island Rail Road supervisor, who was one of five indicted in an overtime scam and among the highest paid MTA employees, has been sentenced to five months in prison and five months home confinement, according to a report in Newsday.

Former Rocky Point resident John Nugent, a 50-year-old former LIRR crew foreman, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and admitted he collected about $34,000 in bogus overtime pay back in July and agreed to pay about $110,000 in restitution, the outlet reported. Prosecutors had requested Nugent be given a sentence within the federal guidelines ranging from 10 to 16 months in prison, with half of the time served by "community or intermittent confinement," according to the outlet.

William Wexler, his defense attorney, asked the judge to follow a probation report recommendation that suggested three years of probation, including five months of home confinement, Newsday reported. In court papers, he said that Nugent, who now lives in Florida, is a husband and father with three grown children who retired in June because of a disability, the outlet reported.

Nugent was indicted in February along with Joseph Balestra, 51, of Blue Point; Thomas Caputo, 56, of Holbrook; Joseph Ruzzo, 56, of Levittown; and NYC Transit worker Michael Gunderson, 42, of Manalapan, New Jersey. The group was accused of claiming to work overtime hours when they were actually not working but rather they were bowling, on vacation, or attending concerts back in 2018, according to the complaint.

They repeatedly covered for one another when they were absent from work and as a result, received over $5,000 in payments for hours that they did not work, according to the indictment.
They were charged with conspiracy to defraud, and at the time, faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

In 2019, Nugent made $350,056, along with Bakestra, also a foreman who made $348,522, making them among the highest-paid MTA employees, Newsday reported. The two, along with Pizzonia, had been suspended without pay, the outlet reported. Caputo, the highest-paid MTA worker as a chief measurement operator in 2019 who made $461,646, and Ruzzo, who made $380,407 that year, both retired.