Former Amtrak employee pleads guilty to wire fraud

Former Amtrak employee pleads guilty to wire fraud

By Trains Staff | February 28, 2022

| Last updated on March 22, 2024


On-board attendant collected money for non-existent charter, submitted false sick claims

U.S. Department of Justice sealNEW ORLEANS — A former Amtrak employee has pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud in connection with actions when she was working as an on-board service attendant.

Kenya Butler-Small will be sentenced on June 15, 2022 for the charges, which carry maximum penalties of 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana announced in a Department of Justice press release.

Butler-Small was charged in December for selling space on a non-existent New Orleans-New York train trip, as well as for submitting false sick benefit claims [see “Former Amtrak worker faces wire fraud charges,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 27, 2021].

She reportedly collected up to $26,000 from more than 40 victims for what she said would be a charter trip including New York activities such as shows and museum visits, then said Amtrak cancelled the trip because one of the passengers assaulted an employee and made a bomb threat. She had never booked the trip and no such incident occurred. She also submitted more than $4,600 in sick claims on days when she said she was too ill to work, but actually was working at another job.

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