Toll Booth Worker Skims $7,500: Cops

Toll booth workers can make a decent living, but maybe not this decent. A temporary bridge and tunnel officer at a Staten Island bridge allegedly skimmed $7,500 from tolls paid by drivers, reports the Staten Island Advance. Between January and March, Richard Betancourt, 22, took the $13 toll from drivers of cars but recorded them as motorcycles, which are charged only $5.50, say police.

The snag: Computers monitor the axles of vehicles on the bridge, and officials eventually spotted the discrepancies. "If you're dumb enough as a toll collector that you do this, when they keep computer records of everything, you deserve to get caught," said a law enforcement source. Betancourt was still in his probationary period on the job, but now he's got grand larceny charges to overcome. (More toll booth stories.)