Amtrak OIG investigation leads to guilty plea in $12 million health care fraud scheme

January 26, 2026

WASHINGTON — A Connecticut man pleaded guilty January 21, 2026, to participating in a health care fraud scheme that defrauded Amtrak’s health care plan of millions of dollars, according to the District of New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Timothy Bogen, 60, of Hamden, Connecticut, was the last of 12 Amtrak employees who were criminally charged in the scheme to plead guilty. Of the 12, four have been sentenced to probation and were ordered to pay restitution. Three of the 12 employees—Quinton Johnson, 54, of Irvington, New Jersey; Gregory Richardson, 36, of Roosevelt, New York; and Dion Jacob, 51, of Brooklyn, New York—pleaded guilty between June and October 2025 under the same indictment, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release.

In May 2025, Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued an investigative report to Amtrak detailing the widespread scheme in which at least 119 employees conspired with New York health care providers to bilk Amtrak’s health care plan from 2019 to 2022. The employees implicated in the scheme, based in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C., accepted cash kickbacks from three health care providers in exchange for the use of their insurance information, and in some cases, that of their dependents. The providers used the employee-provided information to file fraudulent and questionable medical claims for services that were never provided or not medically necessary. In total, Amtrak’s health care plan was billed over $16 million and paid out more than $12 million during the scheme, according to the OIG’s Office of Investigations.

One former employee, Devon Burt of Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, and a co-conspirator, Hallum Gelzer, of East Orange, New Jersey, worked with health care providers to recruit Amtrak employees to participate in the scheme. Burt and Gelzer separately pleaded guilty in June 2023 to charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to communicate extortionate threats. As part of their plea agreements, Burt agreed to pay $959,072 in restitution, while Gelzer agreed to pay approximately $1.66 million. Burt and Gelzer also admitted to threatening to injure a health care provider unless Gelzer was paid several thousand dollars.

The investigation was sparked when an OIG agent noticed unusual billing patterns in reports from OIG data analysts. Further reviews by the analysts identified three New York health care providers with questionable billings who also shared a high number of Amtrak employees as patients. Simultaneously, OIG agents were gathering physical evidence linking Amtrak employees to providers and to the scheme, confirming the analysts’ findings and ultimately revealing the full scope of the fraudulent activity.

Four health care providers and a medical biller have also been charged in the case:

* Punson Figueroa, an acupuncturist from Long Island City, was sentenced to three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay restitution of $9.05 million.

* Muhammed Mirza, a medical doctor from New Jersey, was sentenced on May 7, 2024, to 26 months in prison and was ordered to pay restitution of $1.37 million.

* Michael DeNicola, a podiatrist from New York, pleaded guilty June 29, 2022, to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, distribution of a controlled substance, and unlawful possession of a firearm. DeNicola’s sentencing is pending.

* Medical biller Regina Choi of Woodside, New York, who previously worked for Figueroa, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud on June 11, 2024, for submitting false and fraudulent claims to the Amtrak health care plan and paying cash kickbacks to Amtrak employees. Choi’s sentencing is pending.

* Taejin Kim, physical therapist from Bayside, New York, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud on June 11, 2025. Kim’s sentencing is pending.

Mirza and Figueroa were also excluded from participating in federal health care programs for 25 and 30 years, respectively.

In addition to agents from Amtrak OIG, the case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Amtrak Police Department.

Reports of fraud, waste, or abuse; criminal or unethical acts affecting Amtrak’s property or operations; or mismanagement in Amtrak programs or operations can be made 24 hours a day via the Amtrak OIG Hotline at 1-800-468-5469 or online at https://direc.to/hPAu.

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