See Inside The Secret Homes Built Inside Bay Area Train Stations

SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — The district attorney said in his 50 years working for the county he had never dealt with a case like the two Caltrain employees who admitted to building secret homes in stations and called the case extraordinarily unusual.

Joseph Vincent Navarro, 67, who served as Caltrain's deputy director of operations, directed Andrew Worden, 63, a Caltrain station manager, to use public funds to convert part of the Burligame station into Navarro’s personal residence without authorization from 2019 to 2020, according to District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe’s office.

Worden was sentenced to two months in county jail and one year probation at a hearing on Monday, prosecutors said. On Wednesday, Navarro received a four month sentence in county jail with two years supervised probation, according to prosecutors.

“For Mr. Navarro, a well paid Caltrain executive, to use public funds to build a little home for his girlfriend and himself was offensive to all the citizens who work hard to earn a living and try to live in this very expensive area. He well earned his four months in the county jail,” Wagstaffe said.

Navarro was fired in 2022 after Caltrain received an anonymous tip, prosecutors said. Public funds worth $42,000 were used to build the home, according to the district attorney’s office.

Worden used $8,000 in public funds to convert part of the Millbrae station into his own residence in 2019 but was fired after other Caltrain employees found out, prosecutors said.

Navarro has been ordered to surrender to authorities for his jail sentence on Aug. 2, prosecutors announced on Thursday. A restitution hearing in his case is scheduled for Aug. 15, prosecutors said.

“We have never had anything like this before in our county, and I have been here for 50 years. So fair to say that this case was extraordinarily unusual,” Wagstaffe said.