Former MBTA Inspector Admits Faking Red Line Track Inspections and Overtime
Andy Vicente pleaded guilty to conspiracies to falsify Red Line inspection reports and collect overtime he did not work while fixing cars at Cabot Yard.
A former MBTA track inspector has pleaded guilty to taking part in schemes to fake Red Line track inspections and to collect overtime pay for hours he did not work, federal prosecutors say.
Andy Vicente, 37, of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty on Oct. 20, 2026, in federal court in Boston to conspiracy to falsify records and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said. He was arrested and charged with four others in May 2025, and prosecutors filed a superseding information against him on Sept. 8, 2026.
Inspections logged on an app, but not done
Red Line track inspectors recorded their work on MBTA-issued phones using an app called MaxTrax, which generated a report for each inspection, prosecutors said.
From Jan. 1, 2024, to Oct. 16, 2024, Vicente and his co-conspirators skipped inspections or helped submit falsified reports, according to the office. They filled in the reports with information found online and stretched the recorded length of the “inspections” in the app so that senior MBTA executives would not complain about how long inspections took, prosecutors said.
When the case was first charged in May 2025, coverage put the alleged falsification between Sept. 3, 2024, and Oct. 15, 2024, GBH News reported. That was near the end of a year-long repair campaign to remove speed restrictions on the subway, the outlet reported.
A car repair shop in the train yard
During some of the times his inspections were logged, Vicente was inside Cabot Yard, an MBTA site with a breakroom for Red Line inspection staff, according to court documents described by the office. The yard also has a large garage that Vicente and others used as an auto repair shop for non-MBTA vehicles during work hours, prosecutors said.
Vicente bought vehicles at auto insurance auctions and sold them mainly to a co-conspirator, prosecutors said. On Sept. 19, 2024, while he was supposedly doing a track inspection, surveillance video showed him sitting in the Cabot garage holding his phones, according to the office.
Overtime shifts skipped or slept through
During the same period, Vicente and the others submitted false overtime sheets, prosecutors said. Instead of working overtime shifts, they skipped them, showed up hours late, or scanned in at the start and disappeared for hours, sometimes to sleep in their vehicles. A co-conspirator paid Vicente for the vehicles and for repair work with MBTA money from the overtime system, according to the office.
What happens next
The falsified-records conspiracy charge carries up to five years in prison, and the wire fraud conspiracy charge up to 20 years, prosecutors said. The office did not announce a sentencing date. The cases against the other defendants remain allegations, and they are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s inspector general and the U.S. Department of Labor’s inspector general investigated, with help from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the FBI.
