Former Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) employee, Timothy Dockery pleaded guilty in Suffolk Superior Court yesterday to 13 charges comprising bribery, procurement fraud, accepting illegal gratuities, larceny, and conspiracy, according to a press release from Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell’s office. Dockery was immediately suspended by the MBTA after the indictment in 2017.
The intricate web of corruption involved illegal schemes with four different vendors, including the creation of fake invoices and accepting illegal gifts in exchange for business, affecting the MBTA on multiple levels, leading to a one-year sentence in a House of Correction, followed by two years of probation and restitution payments of $37,860.
The timeline of events veined its way back to 2014 when the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) began investigating Dockery following a hotline tip. The Attorney General's Office joined the investigation in 2016, which steadily progressed until Dockery's indictment in 2017. The MBTA had independently initiated an investigation into the matter earlier and provided full cooperation and assistance in the joint investigation.
During his tenure at the MBTA, Dockery was responsible for the procurement process and overseeing contracts related to non-inventory items that included office supplies and smaller construction contracts. However, the twists and turns of his tale of corruption reveal a saga of manipulation, deceit and a thirst for ill-gotten gains.
In one of the schemes, Dockery collaborated with a vendor to steal approximately $38,000 from the MBTA by submitting fake invoices. He was caught instructing the vendor to create fake invoices for leftover funds on purchase orders and facilitated the payment of those fake invoices thereafter. Dockery and the vendor then shared the money paid out by the MBTA. As part of the investigation, the Attorney General's Office entered into an agreement with the vendor to pay back his half of the stolen proceeds.
In addition to the fake invoice scheme, Dockery also allegedly received cash payments from the same vendor in exchange for help with MBTA procurements and projects. He received around 10 percent of the vendor's profit from at least 70 payments from the MBTA. Since 2011, the vendor had collected more than $1.8 million from the MBTA, authorities attributing at least $60,000 in kickbacks to Dockery.
Two other vendors allegedly provided the ex-MBTA employee with illegal gratuities, public employees like Dockery being prohibited from receiving more than $50 in a one-year period in connection with their official positions. One vendor provided him high-end tickets to sporting events and concerts worth about $23,000, while another offered approximately $8,000 in lunches and goods for Dockery's personal business.
Another procurement fraud scheme saw Dockery create a fake quote to ensure Sheridan's bid for a construction supplies contract was the lowest. He inflated Sheridan's quote by $4,175, ensuring it was just below the fake quote. For other construction projects, Sheridan created and submitted fake quotes, purportedly from two competitor companies, facilitating the illusion of a competitive procurement process.
