Neighbors rip ‘scumbag’ MTA overtime king and his pricey upgrades
Overtime king Thomas Caputo had no trouble spending his nearly half million in pay last year.
Before and after Google street images of his home show he swapped out a broken-down Volkswagen Jetta — seen in 2012 with its hood up and propped on blocks — for a sleek black Audi Q5, which retails for $43,000, in his driveway on Thursday.
There’s also new-looking blue BMW driven by his son Tyler and a gray Honda Accord parked across the street with a logo from the vape store Tyler co-owns, according to the son’s Facebook page.
In addition, Caputo installed all-weather vinyl PVC fencing and a brick and stone driveway.
Caputo, who made $461,646 last year after logging an improbable 3,864 hours in OT and will likely retire with a $162,000 a year pension, has been busy car shopping and making home improvements.
But there’s no love lost between Caputo and some of his neighbors.
John, who declined to give his last name, said he wasn’t scared of Caputo, but “I’d just rather not have him know so he can try to come after me.”
“He thinks he knows everything and is in everyone’s business. Like if you’re doing something in your yard, he’s like, ‘Oh, no. Don’t do it that way. Do it this way,’ ” the neighbor said. “I put a stop to that. I told him to get away from me and leave me alone.”
John also questioned whether Caputo could have worked as many hours of overtime as he claimed last year — the total adding up to an average of 10 extra hours of work per day over 365 days.
“Something’s not right — 3,000 hours?” he said. “ I work overtime for a municipality. No way I’ll come close to 3,000 hours.”
“You’d see him in spring, summer always doing something around his yard, even on weekdays,” he said.
“He’s a f–king d–k,” said his next door neighbor Vito in Holbrook, LI, who had to fork over about $3,000 in 2017 to move his own fence six inches after Caputo sued him in a property- line dispute. “We had to go to court and I had to get a stupid f–king lawyer. He’s a f—king scumbag,” he said. “I lost. After 30 years of living here, I had to move the whole fence six inches.”
Vito, who wouldn’t give his last name, said he never had a problem with the LIRR’s former chief measurement operator until about eight years ago when Caputo tried to make him move his fence. They finally went to small-claims court in 2016 or 2017, he said.
The bad blood kept boiling.
Added his wife: “His windows facing us say, ‘You’re on camera,’ ” she said. A Post reporter spotted two windows at Caputo’s house with yellow smiley-face stickers that say, “Smile, you’re on camera.”
“We don’t bother with them,” she said. “If he’s looking out the window right now, he’ll try to get us back. He’s that type of person.”
Said John, another neighbor: “The whole idea of having cameras on the side of your house, listening to every conversation, there’s something wrong upstairs in your head to be doing that.”
John, who declined to give his last name, said he wasn’t scared of Caputo, but “I’d just rather not have him know so he can try to come after me.”