Skipped security inspections by MTA staff might have brought about a harmful platform hole that brought about ugly accidents to a commuter at a Yonkers prepare station in 2021, her legal professional instructed The Submit.
Mara Jill Leibler bashed her face and broke her hand when she tripped on a platform on the Metro-North’s Greystone station – however her lawyer stated the hazard seemingly went unfixed due to MTA inspectors who filed phony security stories with out ever doing required security checks.
“She simply goes flying ahead, face first, into the concrete,” stated Robert Menna, of Greenberg Legislation. “She put her hand out and that’s how she broke her hand — and she or he additionally hit her face.”
Leibler fell in April 2021 when she didn’t see the five-inch hole between the prepare and platform, attributable to a piece of observe that had sunk over time, Menna stated.
The tumble allegedly left her with a number of smashed tooth and blood dripping down the entrance of her. Leibler needed to have intensive dental work to repair her shattered tooth, Menna stated.
Leibler additionally hit her face — leaving her with cuts and a lot swelling that she may barely see out of 1 eye, her lawyer stated.
And Leibler needed to have surgical procedure on her damaged hand, Menna stated.
“Their information by no means reported any challenge, and we despatched investigators and an professional out to the location on quite a few events and the harmful situation at all times existed,” Menna stated. “So in sum, they weren’t reporting the harmful situation over a number of years.”
A spokesperson for the MTA instructed The Submit security is the “highest precedence” at Metro-North Railroad.
“The company is persistently working to boost it,” the spokesperson added.
Menna filed a lawsuit in 2022, nicely earlier than the faked inspections had been revealed, alleging MTA inspectors failed to notice the sinking observe or the widening vertical hole. The swimsuit claims the company’s inspection logs contained no point out of the hazard, regardless that it was apparent to anybody standing on the platform.
Metro-North denies wrongdoing and can defend itself in opposition to the swimsuit, in response to a spokesperson for the MTA.
The legal professional now believes these clear information mirror the identical type of falsified documentation uncovered in The Submit’s investigation, which revealed that MTA inspectors skipped station checks, faked stories, and had been caught eating out whereas on the clock.
“The entire information present that there was nothing improper, and it handed the inspection,” Menna stated. “So we at all times had this thought behind our minds — how are these information saying that is passing inspection when this is happening for years? Then the article in The Submit got here out and I used to be like, oh — they’re fraudulently writing no matter they need in these stories and never truly doing the inspections.”
Menna stated his professional witness — a former MTA inspector — will testify at trial that Metro-North’s inspection stories for Greystone Station had been “unimaginable” to be true, based mostly on repeated web site visits since 2022 that confirmed the issue has persevered.
“These workers are there to guard the security of the passengers and the folks that journey the trains, they usually’re ignoring their duties,” Menna stated. “In the event that they did their job and reported what was truly occurring, this might not have occurred.”
A choose is predicted to set a 2026 trial date for the case on Nov. 5. Menna stated their settlement demand was $950,000, but it surely was rejected. A courtroom mediator really useful a settlement of $450,000 however Metro-North was “not near that quantity,” Menna stated.
The 2 MTA workers accused of faking prepare inspections are mechanic George Desmond and inspector Ibn Jenkins.
Desmond was fired on Monday, Oct.13, 2025 after a disciplinary listening to, in response to the MTA.
Jenkins isn’t working proper now and isn’t getting paid and continues to be going through disciplinary motion. What occurs subsequent will rely on the foundations in his union contract, in response to the MTA.
