MTA Inspector General Daniel G. Cort announced the sentencing of a former Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) signalman today for falsely claiming to have inspected a crucial signal component — one month before that component failed and caused a Memorial Day Weekend derailment. The Office of the MTA Inspector General (OIG) investigated with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General (DOT-OIG) and the office of U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which handled the prosecution.
STUART CONKLIN, 67, of Magnolia, Texas, was sentenced to one year of probation by U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in the District Court of Central Islip. He had pleaded guilty to Making a False Entry on a Report on December 1, 2023.
MTA IG Daniel Cort said, “Stuart Conklin chose laziness and deception over doing his job, and it is incredibly fortunate that no LIRR riders or any of his own colleagues were injured in the derailment. MTA workers will not get away with pretending to do their jobs. I thank our federal partners for helping us hold such actors accountable, especially because public safety was put at risk.”
Christopher A. Scharf, Special Agent-in-Charge, DOT-OIG, Northeastern Region said, “The sentencing in this investigation conducted with our partners at MTA OIG is reminder of the important oversight role each of our agencies have in protecting the safety and integrity of transportation systems. We will continue to pursue individuals whose deliberate and flagrant actions put MTA riders and their employees at risk.”
CONKLIN’s fake inspection was discovered shortly after two passing LIRR trains collided and derailed in Speonk, New York, on May 25, 2019, and an investigation revealed that the cause of the accident was signal failure.
Investigators learned that failure was due to a broken rail bond, a component that allows signal currents to continue along track rails. That rail bond was reported to have passed inspection on April 26, 2019, by CONKLIN. But video surveillance showed that nobody inspected the rail bond that day.
CONKLIN resigned from LIRR six days after the derailment.