MBTA employees on leave amid criminal investigation at Cabot Yard

Ten MBTA employees are on administrative leave pending an investigation into allegations that they misused T resources for non-work-related activities at a South Boston maintenance yard.

MBTA Transit Police are investigating possible employee misconduct involving non-MBTA vehicles at the Cabot Yard, the T confirmed Friday. The authority did not say when the investigation began.

“We take these allegations very seriously and any findings from this investigation will be addressed appropriately and consistent with our core values,” MBTA CEO Phil Eng said in a statement.

Eng told The Boston Globe The allegations concern employees who work on private vehicles during working hours. However, he reportedly declined to provide details about the investigation into the “potential for criminal activity.” WCVB previously reported that the investigation includes surveillance video of T employees detailing and working on their personal vehicles at the maintenance facility while on the job.

An agenda for Thursday’s MBTA board meeting mentions a discussion at the board meeting “to investigate charges of criminal misconduct or consider filing criminal charges.” In conversation with the globeOutgoing board chairman Thomas Glynn confirmed that the Cabot Yard matter was a topic of discussion during the closed session. Boston.com has reached out to Boston Carmen’s Local 589 for comment.

“As public servants, we have an obligation to properly discharge our duties, not only to the public we serve, but to our entire workforce, and we will take all necessary actions in this matter,” Eng said in his statement.

During his presentation to the MBTA board on Thursday, Eng highlighted the T’s recent victories — most notably the huge reduction in speed limits across the system — but also reflected on the agency’s recent problems.

“Unfortunately, there have been several recent incidents that remind us that we still have so much work to do,” Eng said.

On Oct. 1, a Green Line train derailed near Lechmere station, and a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board found that the train was traveling at more than three times the speed limit and failed to stop at a signal. Just a few weeks later, a man was fatally injured when an MBTA bus driver hit him at the Forest Hills station; Glenn Inghram died the following day.

In his comments to the MBTA board, Eng also discussed his ongoing efforts to reform the agency’s culture and empower the workforce to speak up and present new ideas or say when there is a better way to do things.

“Let’s show we can deliver,” Eng said. “Let’s show how we support each other, have each other’s backs and know that when it comes to safety or procedure, that’s what we need to do and that it’s important to us to do that to do.”

Changing the culture is “probably the hardest thing,” he said.

“No one can do this,” Eng added. “It takes the entire team, from top to bottom.”

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Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work covers public transportation, crime, health and everything in between.

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