A pair of LIRR retirees charged in the $1 billion “gravy train” disability scam — one of whom was jailed for threatening a witness — pleaded guilty Monday as their trials were set to begin in Manhattan federal court.
Former conductor Thomas Coscetta, 62, and fellow LIRR worker Kevin Neville both admitted before Federal Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman that they had faked infirmities to garner fat disability checks at taxpayers’ expense.
Coscetta pleaded guilty to mail fraud, wire fraud and health care fraud.
He had faced a maximum of up to 20 years in a federal pen and three years supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
But under a plea deal, he’s expected to be sentenced at a later date to 27 to 33 months behind bars and forfeit the proceeds from the scheme, which are estimated at $307,501.
“I knowingly completed and submitted false forms with others to the US Railroad Retirement Board. These forms were to be relied upon to receive disability and other benefits … I knew this was wrong,” Coscetta told the court.
Neville, an ex train dispatcher, pleaded guilty to the same charges. He will forfeit $211,700 and is expected to be sentenced to 21 to 27 months in prison.
The gun-loving Coscetta had his bail revoked recently after prosecutors said he made repeated threats to the witness at a Long Island gun club where both are members.
Coscetta, 62, has repeatedly referred to the man as a “rat,” and said it “right to his face,” Manhattan federal prosecutor Nicole Friedlander said at an earlier hearing.
Coscetta sneaked up on the witness while he was wearing protective hearing gear and shooting at the Mattituck Gun Club.
“Mr. Coscetta stomped on the ground where [the witness] was standing and said, ‘You see, I could kill him now,’ ” a third club member told the feds, Friedlander said.
Coscetta’s lawyer, Dennis Lemke said Monday he didn’t expect the gun incident at the range to come into play during his sentencing, and that the dispute between the two men dated back before the LIRR scandal broke.
Despite claiming ailments that caused “weakness in his extremities” and “shaking in his hands,” Coscetta has fired “thousands of rounds” at trap-shooting competitions, the feds charge.
The trials of two other former LIRR workers, Michael Costanza and Frederick Catalano, also started Monday.
Twenty-seven people have now pleaded guilty in the LIRR case, which extends to the late 1990s, and are cooperating with the feds in a bid for leniency.
A Manhattan federal jury last month found Dr. Peter Lesniewski and railroad retiree consultants Marie Baran and Joseph Rutigliano guilty of helping hundreds of LIRR employees receive sham disability payments by faking career-ending physical ailments.
The jury found the trio, who pocketed more than $1 million through the scheme, guilty on all 21 counts, including charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, health-care fraud and conspiring to defraud the federal government.
They were the first to stand trial for the long-running scheme, which the FBI busted in 2011.