Caltrain Employees Sentenced After Secret Apartment Scheme

Two former Caltrain employees found guilty of embezzling public funds to build secret apartments in train stations are headed for the big house.

Seth Andrew Worden and Joseph Vincent Navarro were each sentenced to several months in county jail this week for their involvement in the scheme, SF Gate reported. Navarro was hit with a four-month jail term and two years of probation on Monday, and Worden’s sentence of 60 days in jail and one year of probation came down Wednesday. Navarro received 28 days of credit for time already served.

The scheme dates back to 2019 when Navarro, Caltrain’s former deputy director of operations, directed Worden, a Caltrain station manager, to hire contractors to remodel former office space in the Burlingame and Millbrae Caltrain stations into personal apartments. Navarro purportedly told Worden to keep invoices below the $3,000 threshold he could approve, with the upgrades totaling $42,000.

Navarro moved into the Burlingame station apartment and kept it as his primary residence until he was caught in 2022 and fired. The unit was complete with air conditioning, a kitchen, shower, heating, plumbing and security cameras, as well as a personal gym, according to The Mercury News.

The duo similarly remodeled part of the Millbrae station in 2019 to the tune of $8,000. Caltrain employees discovered the residence in 2020. The apartment was less furnished than the one in the historic Burlingame station.

The apartments haven’t been touched since, as Caltrain was instructed to leave them as-is during court proceedings. For now, the agency can’t alter them as they aren’t up to code and are in historic buildings that would require extra scrutiny for any changes.

“The little homes they built remain intact as they constructed them,” San Mateo County district attorney Steve Wagstaffe told SF Gate. “The work was well done.”— Chris Malone Méndez