Un-fare!

RVC man charged with making, selling fake tickets to LIRR riders

Posted

A Rockville Centre man was charged on Aug. 15 with forging Long Island Rail Road tickets and selling them to riders.

According to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, Michael Wright, 27, of Rockville Centre, was robbing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of thousands of dollars worth of fares by selling the fake tickets to unsuspecting commuters.

“The defendant is alleged to have orchestrated a complicated counterfeiting scheme,” Brown said. “For months he allegedly created look-alike tickets, printed them from his home computer and then sold them to LIRR train riders. The defendant’s alleged actions stole money from the MTA — cheating the system, commuters and the public.”

Train conductors had been confiscating fake tickets for months. Officials said that MTA police had discovered four counterfeit weekly tickets and 29 forged monthly tickets from March to June, with an estimated value of more than $3,000.

An investigation by the MTA police led them to Wright. Police seized items from his home on June 3, allegedly including computer equipment, a laminating machine and adhesive film. Police said that a forensic analysis of Wright’s flash drive uncovered images of weekly and monthly LIRR tickets for March, April, May and June. The arrest was not made until this month, the D.A.’s office said, because the forensic analysis was a time-consuming process.

MTA police declined to elaborate on how they connected the fraudulent tickets to Wright.

“This case is a great example of coordination between LIRR conductors, who noticed the counterfeit tickets, and MTA police investigators, who traced them back to the source,” said MTA Police Chief Michael Coan. “Their professionalism was key to identifying this pattern of fraudulent tickets and foiling the defendant’s operation.”

Wright was charged with third-degree grand larceny, second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, first-degree identity theft and second-degree trademark counterfeiting, and released on $3,000 bail. He is due back in court at the end of the month.