LIRR says it's guarding against more time theft schemes

The Long Island Rail Road has taken several measures, including installing cameras near time clocks, to combat employee time abuse like that uncovered in an MTA watchdog investigation into a counterfeit employee ID card ring involving 36 workers, the railroad’s president said Thursday.

As first reported in Newsday , a report by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Inspector General’s Office — an independent oversight agency — accused three dozen LIRR workers, including seven supervisors, of buying a machine on Amazon and producing, distributing and using counterfeit employee ID cards. Employees swiped the cloned badges at time clocks at three LIRR facilities — in Ronkonkoma, Queens and Manhattan — to cover up for the absences of their co-workers, some of whom "would routinely leave