A former federal railroad official is being investigated for her possible role in a scheme to rip off the Long Island Rail Road pension system by handing out disability payments like Halloween candy, a source close to the probe said yesterday.
On Saturday, an investigator for state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo served Marie Baran, former head of the Westbury office of the US Railroad Retirement Board, with a subpoena for her records, the source said.
Baran, 61, is “under suspicion” of taking part in the scheme – for which she allegedly took $2,000 per “client” – the source said.
Another source said Baran, who went from running the Westbury office to helping LIRR retirees obtain the payments – which average $35,000 a year – “is obviously a point of interest.”
Baran, of East Meadow, also received a visit at home from the FBI, a source said.
She repeatedly refused to speak to The Post.
Cuomo’s office, the FBI, the US Attorney’s Office, the LIRR and the railroad board are probing a scheme in which virtually all LIRR retirees got disability payments whether they were hurt or not.
The Post has also learned that a federal grand jury is probing possible pension corruption and has issued “a large number” of subpoenas.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) has attacked the disability payments, saying they “must not be given away like candy on Halloween.”
Sources said the federal and state investigators were exploring the role of well-paid “disability specialists” like Baran who fill out the applications for retirees.
“She did what many other people have done – she was a facilitator, who fills out the applications for the workers,” said a former LIRR employee, who asked that his name not be used.
“Everything that has been publicized sounds like this was better organized than the railroad.”
Workers “paid $2,000 a pop” for the services of Baran and other disability specialists to “expedite” their claims, he said.
Baran had operated out of an office in the Rockville Centre headquarters of the LIRR’s Transportation Communications Union. But after The Post tried several times to contact her there, a union spokeswoman said she “no longer works here.”
Additional reporting by Fredric U. Dicker and Andy Geller