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Fraud probe limits VRE ticket sales
VRE severs ties with Nader's Grocery
Date published: 1/18/2007
By KELLY HANNON The Virginia Railway Express announced yesterday that it will no longer use Nader's Grocery in Fredericksburg as a ticket vendor. The convenience store at the corner of Caroline Street and Lafayette Boulevard near the downtown train station is being investigated by Alexandria City police in connection with more than $200,000 in missing VRE ticket sales. The commuter rail service's offices are in Alexandria; Fredericksburg is the southern-most stop on the line. Nader's was among 13 locations where commuter rail riders could redeem a federal commuting subsidy, called a Metrochek, for VRE tickets. A VRE employee was sent to Nader's to collect Metrocheks, cash ticket payments and to "reconcile the books as best we can," said Mark Roeber, VRE's manager of government relations and public affairs. Fredericksburg-area riders may still redeem Metrocheks at 7-Eleven, 327 Deacon Road, in southern Stafford, near the Leeland Road station. Or, they may mail Metrocheks to Commuter Direct. Passengers can set up an account online at commuterdirect.com to receive tickets at home or work. Tickets are available at all VRE stations for purchasers who use credit cards. Roeber declined to discuss the police investigation, which came to light in a search warrant filed Tuesday in Fredericksburg Circuit Court. No one has been charged as of yesterday, but a former VRE accounting employee, Jessica Funk of Lake Ridge, and the owners of Nader's Grocery, Peter and Ainese Kang, are under investigation, according to the search warrant. Funk was responsible for processing Metrocheks and ticket sales from Nader's Grocery in 2004 and 2005. She was fired in December 2005 after she was caught lying about taking college courses to obtain tuition reimbursement. Funk was convicted of obtaining money by false pretenses, a felony, in June 2006 in Alexandria Circuit Court. She was sentenced to two years in prison, all of which was suspended. She was also given 30 hours of community service and placed on supervised probation for a year. During an August 2006 audit, VRE noticed Nader's was turning in Metrochek payments, but a decreasing amount of cash and check payments. Many passengers use Metrochek--which has a maximum monthly amount of $110--to pay part of their ticket cost. A monthly pass from Fredericksburg to Union Station costs $243.70. Vendors are supposed to report Metrochek, cash and check payments. Police seized items from Nader's Grocery in connection with the investigation. The search warrant affidavit states that the other VRE vendors' records are "copious, clear, complete but significantly lacking regarding Nader's." VRE expects to recoup its losses. "This is not going to impact the financial stability of VRE," Roeber said. To reach KELLY HANNON:
Date published: 1/18/2007
Dosen't suprise me
(posted by
dogen6226
, Sep. 25, 2007 2:41 pm)
Please close the whole store! It is a blight on the neigborhood anyway. The pricess are outrageous, a lot of the food outdated, the locals are constantly breaking in line, and folks hanging around outside near the payphone..well, lets just say, in the day of cell phones, you don''t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what they're probably up to. This could be a decent neighborhood store, but instead it exploits the locals by its prices, and serves as a magnet for others who work "part time jobs".
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