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Service for Disabled Is Troubled
Marquette Henderson said his frequently late MetroAccess ride forced him to leave his job last year. He sometimes chose to walk home from work along the highway rather than wait.
(By Michael Robinson-Chavez - The Washington Post)
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One MetroAccess customer used her name and identification information to book trips for her healthy daughter, said Roesle, the former LogistiCare manager. When the company alerted Metro, the agency sent the woman a letter reminding her about proper procedures. "She wasn't even suspended -- she just got away with it," Roesle said.
Avon Mackel, who oversaw the program for Metro until he was put on leave and retired this year, turned over evidence of alleged fraud to Metro Transit Police, records show. But nothing happened, Mackel said, adding that he was made a "scapegoat" for the program's problems.
"It was practically impossible for Metro to verify that trips were legitimate. And when problems were brought to the attention of the powers that be, they essentially didn't do anything," he said.
Bill Lee, a 59-year-old Bowie resident with cerebral palsy, said he often has been asked to sign blank taxicab vouchers that drivers could later fill in for any amount and submit for reimbursement. Some drivers asked him to sign falsified logs recording his late trips as on time, he said.
Customers said that sometimes, they called Metro directly to complain.
Felicia Haynes, a 45-year-old Silver Spring resident, knew something was wrong when she was picked up for a MetroAccess ride by a cab in February 2004 and the meter was already running. It was a nine-mile trip from her home to her job at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, but the meter read $54. Although she had to pay only the MetroAccess fare, $2.40 at the time, she was concerned that the cabdriver was bilking MetroAccess for a trip that should have cost about $17.
After this kept happening, Haynes became so disturbed that she called James Zingale, Metro's director of procurement.
"He told me that he knew all about the problems, that he was aware of it," she said. "Then he gave me the project manager's name and number and told me to call him. And then he said, 'Good luck getting ahold of him, because the guy never even returns my calls.' "
Zingale said he remembered the call but not the content. "I hope I wasn't rude to her," he said.
The only authority to act on Haynes's complaint was the Montgomery County taxi inspector, who denied the driver's taxi license renewal and notified MetroAccess, records show. Weeks later, the same driver picked up Haynes again, this time working for a MetroAccess subcontractor that didn't require a taxi license, according to interviews and Montgomery County records.
John Hoffman, who recently resigned as the county's chief taxi inspector, said he forwarded the case to Metro and recommended that Transit Police investigate whether a wider pattern of fraud existed. "But they didn't seem to want to spend the time going through the records," he said.
LogistiCare and Mackel might have brought forward isolated fraud cases, but no one ever suggested "that there was a big problem and it was deep," White said.
