PHILADELPHIA — A former Amtrak information technology official and two vendors have been indicted in a bribery case involving millions of dollars of Amtrak IT work.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Richard Thompson, 47, of Falls Church, Va., was Amtrak’s former director of network planning and engineering. He was indicted on a charge of honest services wire fraud through bribery, along with Shaun Hanrahan, 66, of Hampton, Va., and Darren Hannam, 57, of Haymarket, Va., whose companies provided services for Amtrak. Hannam is also charged with falsification of records for allegedly trying to cover up the scheme.
An online resume indicates Thompson worked for Amtrak from March 2013 to December 2020.
The indictment alleges that from 2015 through 2021, Thompson engaged in bribery schemes with three companies that were his favored vendors for Amtrak contracts — consulting and computer firm Awarity LLC, owned by Hanrahan; IT company Arch Technology, were Hannam and an individual identified as co-schemer No. 1 were the principals; and 20/20 Teknology, owned by co-schemer No. 2.
Thompson allegedly gave those companies proprietary information that gave them advantages in the contracting process; collaborated with them on bid and contract documents; manipulated bidding lists; and structured existing contracts so that those favored venders would get lucrative subcontracting deals and bypass competitive bidding. In return, Thompson received cash and other gifts, including more than $145,000, an automobile, computers and other electronics, and free hotel and condominium stays in Ocean City, Md.
The work involved included design and installation of nationwide WiFi networks; IT and audio-visual equipment, and a project “to improve the gates that provided access to Amtrak railroad tracks across the country,” according to a press release from the Attorney’s Office.
All three men face multiple counts of the bribery charge, and could face maximum prison sentences of 20 years for each count. The case was investigated by the FBI and the Amtrak Office of Inspector General.
Amtrak said in a May 2 statement to Trains News Wire that it “took swift and definitive action to separate the employee involved in this case and continues cooperating with the investigation.”
The company said its leadership “is dedicated to maintaining a strong culture of ethics, values, and compliance, a message that is delivered continually to all employees, contractors, and vendors. In recent years, we have enhanced employee fraud prevention and awareness training and regularly promoted the usage of whistleblower mechanisms to report suspected wrongdoing. … These results reinforce a strong message to anyone who steals from Amtrak: you will be caught, and there will be consequences.”
It is one of two major bribery cases involving Amtrak currently being pursued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia. It is also involved with a case involving the renovation of Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station; a defendant entered a guilty plea in that case on Wednesday. [See “Contractor pleads guilty …,” News Wire, May 1, 2025].
— Updated May 2 at 2:06 p.m. CT with Amtrak statement.
The article said he was involved in the bribery through 2021 but indicated his employment appeared to end December, 2020 so the 2 dates don’t match.
These indicted persons makes one wonder about the poor performance of Amtrak’s IT. Over the years there were many posts about IT not doing their work very efficiently. In the past there were many posts on various sites showing how IT could work more effectively/ If these indicted contractors were not the best Amtrak could have gotten, the secondary effects that Amtrak had would not allow Amtrak to run IT based functions the most effectively.