A pair of former Metro workers who were fired in January after being arrested on charges they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the transit agency pleaded guilty today in federal court in Northern Virginia.
Horace Dexter McDade and John Vincent Haile admitted they stole $445,000 from fare machines across Metrorail stations in the District, Virginia and Maryland beginning in 2010 until their arrest on January 18, the Post reported. McDade, who worked as a revenue technician, and Haile, a retired Metro Transit Police officer, swiped bags of coins and bills when their shifts were done and stashed them in a location near the Capital Beltway, they admitted.
The pair were caught with the help of global positioning system surveillance devices, the Post reported. Court records show that the GPS-aided searches were approved by a judge. (The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in January that such searches must be authorized by a warrant.)
But the more telling giveaways might have been how conspicuously McDade and Haile spent the money:
On a near-nightly basis, court records said, Haile used stolen money to buy Virginia Lottery tickets, authorities said. Sometimes he would bring in bags containing $500 worth of stolen coins. Between October and December, he used more than $28,000 in coins and paper money to purchase tickets, according to court records.
And Haile won frequently. In 2011, he won 29 times, totaling $32,000, records show. He also won amounts under $600, but the Virginia Lottery doesn’t require retailers to document personal information for lesser amounts. Prosecutors said that Haile’s bank records show unexplained cash deposits of more than $150,000 since 2008.
McDade used his portion of the stolen Metro funds to make “numerous cash and coin purchases” at Home Depot and Lowe’s home improvement stories and to pay off account balances at Zale’s jewelers and Sprint, according to the statement of facts in the case.
Metro remained silent on the matter apart from verifying the Haile and McDade’s dates of employment. When sentenced, they each face up to 30 years in prison and a fine of as much as $750,000.
