A new report says more than half the Long Island Rail Road workers who retired last year claimed they were disabled on the job and were thereby entitled to a bigger pension.
The New York Times reports that nearly all those claims were approved. That rate is much higher than in any other U.S. railroad system.
Federal prosecutors charged 11 people on Thursday with conspiracy in a decade-long fraud that authorities say poisoned the pension system used by employees of the nation's largest commuter railroad. Authorities say some employees paid off doctors to say they couldn't work.
The FBI says the fraud could cost more than $1 billion.
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The investigation was opened after The Times reported in 2008 that almost all LIRR workers were being declared disabled upon retirement.
