Amtrak's Union Station Head Admits Funnelling 'Polar Express' Work To Wife's Company

CHICAGO, IL — Union Station's superintendent of transportation confessed in federal court Thursday to arranging photography work at Amtrak's "Polar Express" event last holiday seaon for his wife's Downers Grove business in order to pay off more than $25,000 of personal debt, the U.S. Attorney's office said. Benjamin Sheets, 50, of Downers Grove, pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Office of Inspector General for Amtrak, Sheets' employer. He knowingly created phony records and statements in order to mislead the transit agency's investigators who were looking into the work deal, according to prosecutors.

Sheets could face up to five years in prison for making false statements. His sentencing hearing is Feb. 27.

Federal prosecutors claimed in the case that Sheets began devising the plan for Amtrak to award his wife photography work after she informed him via email Nov. 2, 2016, that they were more than $25,000 in debt. Sheets suggested skirting around Amtrak's normal protocols for awarding work contracts in order to set up a photography job through her wife's company at the agency's "Polar Express" holiday celebration, which ran through December and included actors riding on trains based on the 2004 movie that is adapted from the 1985 children's book, prosecutors said. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for Chicago — or your neighborhood. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

After landing the job, the company sold more than 3,600 photos for $10 each at a photo booth in Union Station’s Great Hall, the U.S. Attorney's off said. When investigators from the Inspector General's office began checking out the arrangement in March, Sheets had the outside promotions company behind the Amtrak event phony up a back-dated contract that made it look as if his wife's company had been hired before the event began.

“The American people deserve fair and honest services from those entrusted to manage aspects of our nation’s passenger rail service,” Amtrak's Inspector General Thomas Howard said. “Amtrak personnel who make false statements in an effort to achieve personal gain will be held accountable.”

Photo via Google Earth

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