NEW YORK (AP) – A man who has been arrested repeatedly for pretending to be a transit worker pleaded guilty Thursday to trying to steal a locomotive in June, prosecutors said.
Darius McCollum, 39, went into a Long Island Rail Road yard, posed as a safety consultant and asked representatives of a locomotive company how to operate a new type of engine that had just been delivered, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a news release.
McCollum left the train yard when his identification was questioned, and he was found with stolen keys, including one used to operate the new locomotive, Brown said.
McCollum pleaded guilty to third-degree attempted grand larceny before Justice Steven Paynter and faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced on March 28, Brown said.
A telephone message left at the office of his lawyer, Stephen Jackson, was not immediately returned.
McCollum has been arrested 20 times for illegally posing as a subway motorman, bus driver or transit token taker. When he was arrested in the June incident, he was on parole after serving prison time for his last arrest.
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