DEA pays Amtrak 'secretary' for passengers' names

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DEA pays Amtrak ‘secretary’ for passengers’ names

there must be more to this. for 20 years this was paid to a secretary? This person should be called back to active duty and investigated. If they lied about this pay for 20 years, are they really telling the truth now? Lastly, I should think this person is a risk for income tax evasion. Shouldn’t the IRS be investigating for failure to report income? And this is all federal money (tax dollars). Incredibly stupid.

“secretary to a train and engine crew”…that must be one hell of a labor agreement. The crews have secretarys!

Why should departments that sieze money be allowed to keep the money? It should 1. be only kept by the government after a judicial proceeding proving it was ill-gotten and 2. it should go to the federal or state treasury and disbursed via legislative action. This kind of thing is ripe for abuse as demonstrated by the story.

The employee was ALLOWED to retire instead of facing discipline through the company??? Nice, real nice!

They didn’t make her pay back the $854K?!?!?! Are they crazy??

Interagency teamwork - a beautiful thing!!!

Not unique to this situation - This has been going on for years!

This why I want a govt. job, no matter what they do, they rarely if EVER get in trouble for anything and STILL keep their pension. Of course I would want to work for the govt.

Make DEA pay Amtrak what they should have paid in the first place. Amtrak could use the money.

They arrest people for shoplifting groceries and she grabs $854K and they just let her walk away - AMAZING!

Crime does not pay unless you work for the Government.

So that is how someone new that john does grandson was away from home, The grandmother got a call about 2 am. Grandson must have 2 grand wired to him or he would be retained by the law. He was on an overnight train trip. BYE, BYE $2000.00…Possibility of this happening, think about it.

To Ian Narita: DEA never should have paid anyone, or any agency, for information already available through the government internet. It’s false to say that DEA “owes” Amtrak anything.

Prosecuting the alleged “Amtrak employee” is an entirely different bucket of worms.

Must be some of the higher-ups split the cash! Otherwise, why no prosecution or disgorgement?

Comments by L.A. BECK and R.B. TOTH refer to the “secretary” as “her” and “she” respectively. Nowhere in the article is the “secretary’s” gender stated.

David Snyder, my thoughts exactly! Doesn’t anybody on the editorial staff verify the facts? This whole deal smells fishy.

Okay, I’m confused. Why is Amtrak’s own inspector general describing this person as a “secretary to a train and engine crew” when apparently no such position exists?

And exactly where did this money end up? Did the ‘secretary’ put the money in Amtrak’s bank account or in his personal checking account? If another agency was willing to give Amtrak money they didn’t have to, I suppose I can see the Amtrak IG not getting too upset about it. But if the person was embezzeling it, shouldn’t he be at least a little peeved?

OUTRAGEOUS