Former Metro Employees Sentenced for Stealing $500,000 from Metro Fare Machines

ALEXANDRIA, VA—A former Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) revenue technician and former police officer were sentenced today for stealing approximately $500,000 in cash and coins from Metro stations throughout Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. and laundering the money by purchasing Virginia Lottery tickets and making cash purchases from local home improvement stores.

Neil H. MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Michael Taborn, Metro Transit Chief of Police; and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, made the announcement after sentencing by United States District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema.

John Vincent Haile, 54, of Woodbridge, Virginia, and Horace Dexter McDade, 58, of Bowie, Maryland, pled guilty on March 19, 2012 to theft concerning programs receiving federal funds and conspiring to commit money laundering. Today, Haile was sentenced to 37 months in prison and McDade was sentenced to 30 months. They were also ordered to pay $472,679 in restitution and serve a three-year term of supervised release.

“These men were on the front lines of securing Metro’s fares, and they brazenly abused their positions—shift after shift, year after year—to steal half a million dollars from Metro and local taxpayers,” said U.S. Attorney MacBride. “Now they will spend years in prison paying for their greed.”

“These individuals violated the trust of the very system they were supposed to protect, and they have now been held accountable for their actions,” said Assistant Director in Charge McJunkin. “We thank the Metro Transit Police and all those involved in this investigation for their successful efforts that led to today’s sentence, and we remain committed to continuing to work together to pursue those who conduct such illegal acts.”

“We would like to thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI, and all partner agencies for their diligence in this case and for holding these men accountable for their actions,” said Metro Transit Police Chief Taborn. “We do not tolerate theft and dishonesty, and we hold our workforce to a high standard.”

According to court records, McDade had worked for WMATA since 1979 and was assigned as a revenue technician, servicing the Metro rail stations’ fare vendors when vendors malfunction. Haile was hired by the Metro Transit Police Department in 1997 and provided protection and security for revenue technicians as they traveled throughout the Metro system transporting funds to and from the Metro Revenue Collection Facility in Alexandria, Virginia.

McDade and Haile stole approximately $500,000 in cash and coins that was paid to Metro by customers as fares. During their shifts collecting funds from Metro stations and transporting those funds to the collection facility in Alexandria, the two men would make an unscheduled stop and conceal bags of money at an underpass in the parking lot of a Marriott Courtyard Hotel on Eisenhower Avenue in Alexandria. Later in the evening after completing their shifts, McDade and Haile would return to the underpass in their personal cars to retrieve the money they had hidden.

On January 18, 2012, the night of their arrest, Haile and McDade had each stolen more than $8,000 of Metro coins and cash. Both employees were subsequently terminated by WMATA.

Haile admitted that he laundered the money he stole from Metro through purchasing an extraordinary amount of Virginia Lottery tickets, often paying with multiple bags of coins containing $500 each. Haile visited convenience stores on a near-nightly basis to purchase tickets before returning home. In fact, from October 2011 through December 2011, he paid more than $28,000 in cash and coins to purchase tickets from one of these convenience stores.

McDade also admitted to laundering money through the Virginia Lottery system. In addition, McDade also laundered the proceeds of his thefts by making numerous cash and coin purchases at The Home Depot and Lowe’s. He also used the proceeds to pay off account balances at Zales and Sprint.

This ongoing investigation was conducted by the Metro Transit Police Department, Metro’s Office of Inspector General, and the FBI’s Washington Field Office, with assistance from the Alexandria Police Department and the Virginia Lottery. The Alexandria Commonwealth Attorney’s Office also assisted in this case. Assistant United States Attorney Chad Golder is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.