New York – The state’s top court ruled Thursday that a once-common scam to snag free rides on New York City’s subways can be prosecuted as a felony.
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The Court of Appeals said deliberately bending subway cards to fool the turnstile scanners is forgery, upholding Jonathan Mattocks’ conviction and prison sentence of two to four years.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority estimated in 2005 that defaced MetroCards cost the system about $16 million a year, or 8 million free rides.
Paul Fleuranges, spokesman for the MTA’s New York City Transit division, said software changes in the past three years have made it harder to steal free rides.
Mattocks had faced misdemeanors when was caught for earlier thefts and said he expected to get only three months in jail at worst after he was arrested again in October 2005.
Police said they caught him bending the magnetic strip on depleted cards and using them to swipe other subway riders through turnstiles for money.
“We trust that felony forgery prosecutions involving bent or altered MetroCards will be reserved for individuals, like defendant, who have been repeatedly prosecuted and convicted for abusing the MetroCard system,” Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote.
She noted that prosecutors have a range of options, from noncriminal violations and two levels of misdemeanors to the class D felony against fare beaters.
The other six judges agreed.
New York City’s pay-per-ride MetroCards have two magnetic fields that record their purchase value, with $2 deducted when swiped at turnstiles. With the primary field damaged, the secondary field left a $2 value, giving the passenger the benefit of the doubt for one more ride.
Some riders creased the primary field on depleted cards to get a free ride or sell them.
Mattocks was arrested in the subway station at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Police said they found 14 bent cards and three dollar bills in his pockets.
“We felt that the bent MetroCard was like a defaced and obviously void check, and even to the turnstile reader it could not be subject to forgery because it was invalid on its face,” said attorney Brian McCloskey, who represented Mattocks on appeal.
The court rejected that argument. Because there are no federal issues to appeal, this ends the case, he said.
Alicia Maxey Greene, spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Mattocks, said the way they track cases doesn’t show how many fare beaters they take to court. She said the numbers have declined since the software change.
The subway switched from tokens to MetroCards in 1994.
“Notably, the use of ‘slugs’ in place of tokens at subway turnstiles had been upheld as a forgery,” Graffeo wrote.
The new system also has cards that provide unlimited rides for a period of time. Fleuranges said transit officials are working with police to stop scammers who use those cards to repeatedly swipe in other riders for money. “When we see cards used that way, we shut them down,” he said.
Why doesn’t the city just make better cards rather than prosecute people who bend their cards!?!
#1 , that’s like saying, “why can’t the state build better prisons instead of punishing the people that escape from it?”
8 million a year is about one out of 8 million! In other words, out of the 8 million people riding the subway/bus every day, 1 single ride is stolen with this scam.
What’s the fuss all about?
how do you bend the cards to get extra rides……inquiring minds want to know????????
forget about #1 .
get to the eekar zach.
how do you bend the card to get the free ride.
inquiring minds want to know.
It will cost the city more money to keep thise thugs in jail then they stole
“Police said they found 14 bent cards and three dollar bills in his pockets.”
I think he should have been prosecuted for forging the three dollar bills. Who ever heard of a three dollar bill?