California high-speed rail consultants billed taxpayers for late-night rides from CEO

Well after dark one night last September, a highly paid consultant for the California High-Speed Rail Authority expensed a Lyft ride that pulled up outside the agency CEO's home in Folsom, California.

The first was Denver attorney Brent Butzin, who CBS California has independently confirmed is the legal-services consultant referenced in the High-Speed Rail inspector general's recent investigation. The second was Thierry Prate, a managing director at KPMG, the financial adviser examined in the same report.

And it wasn't the only late-night ride from the High-Speed Rail CEO's home.

After California's independent High-Speed Rail inspector general found widespread failures in consultant travel oversight, whistleblowers provided CBS California Investigates with some of the underlying expense records.

Among the receipts from two consultants, Prate and Butzin, we found a dozen rides to or from the small residential street in Folsom where High-Speed Rail CEO Ian Choudri owns a home.

Many rides involved late-night or early-morning pickups, including two after 1 a.m.

But the receipts reveal previously undisclosed connections between consultants' travel expenses and the CEO's private residence.

What state business justified trips to and from the CEO's private residence and nearby restaurants, sometimes after midnight?

The questions come as California's high-speed rail project continues to spend billions, nearly two decades after voters approved a bullet train connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, the authority said it is paying just four consulting contractors more than a quarter of a billion dollars over two fiscal years.

Sources inside the High-Speed Rail Authority say the inspector general's findings point to something much bigger than questionable travel expenses.

Choudri walked away without answering. The authority's head of communications told CBS California that Choudri would not answer questions and directed reporters to email questions to his office.