Six members of the Metropolitan Police Department falsified overtime claims and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in pay they didn’t earn, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said.
Five current or former officers and a civilian employee are accused of forging approvals and altering official overtime records, Schwalb said. They’re accused of defrauding the District of $441,137.
“These six officers abused their positions of power, exploiting the District and the residents they took an oath to serve and protect,” the attorney general said in a statement. “No one is above the law, especially those trusted with enforcing it.”
MPD Internal Affairs launched an investigation after finding a curiously high amount of claimed overtime and discrepancies between claimed work and independent verification.
The investigation revealed hundreds of suspicious OT claims and pay for unworked hours while the defendants were assigned to the 5th District, the AG said. Three of the officers are retired, an I-Team source said.
The accused are charged with first-degree fraud, first-degree theft, forgery and uttering, which involves using a forged or altered document with intent to commit fraud.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. will prosecute the case.
“While the Home Rule Act does not grant my office the jurisdiction to directly prosecute these cases, through our partnership with the USAO, we are able to protect taxpayer dollars and root out local public corruption,” Schwalb said in the statement. “I encourage DC residents to report suspected public corruption to my office.”
Among the methods the defendants allegedly used were claiming overtime while outside of the District — including while traveling — and while on leave, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release.
“Every day, we rely on law enforcement to uphold the public’s trust. These MPD members betrayed that trust by scheming to collect unearned, undeserved income, costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in the release. “They will be held accountable, and my office remains focused on rooting out fraud and protecting the American taxpayer.”
D.C. police had no comment on the pending case.
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