For immediate release: September 27, 2017

WMATA Office of Inspector General announces guilty plea

The following news release was issued by the Metro Office of Inspector General. 

The WMATA Office of Inspector General today announced the guilty plea of theft of government property by Da'Mon Price, 24, of Clinton, Md., in Federal District Court in Greenbelt. 

The joint investigation revealed that Price had accepted employment at WMATA as a student bus operator while concurrently receiving Workers Compensation payments from the United States Postal Service for an injury he claimed to have received while in the performance of his duties as a letter carrier. Under the conditions of his Workers Compensation claim, Price was designated in a "no work" capacity. 

Price received a sentence of one year probation and was ordered to pay $2,940.96 in restitution and a fine of $1,000.00 by Magistrate Judge Thomas M. DiGirolamo. 

The investigation was conducted jointly by the United States Postal Service OIG and WMATA-OIG and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Hollis Weisman.

Metro Inspector General Geoff Cherrington commended the USAO for the prosecution and thanked the USPS-OIG for their "fine partnership in this investigation."

"This office is committed to the taxpayers to fight fraud and refer for prosecution cases at any level to protect our tax dollars," said Metro Assistant Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming. "We want to send a message that any fraud -- regardless of the size -- will be referred for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law."

Media contact for USPS-OIG:
ASAC Lance Norrington
(770) 225-3502
lnorrington@uspsoig.gov

Media contact for WMATA:
Media Relations
(202) 962-1051