A judge signed arrest warrants for six current and former D.C. police employees Tuesday after authorities accused them of collecting nearly half a million dollars combined for overtime they did not work.
The employees — a former sergeant, two officers, one former senior police officer, a former lieutenant and a civilian employee — will be charged with fraud, theft and forgery, according to news releases from the D.C. attorney general’s office and the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. They will also be charged with uttering, which means presenting a document one knows is fake or forged.
The arrests come as D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department is struggling to curb soaring overtime costs and grappling with a 50-year staffing low. For many officers, overtime has become an increasingly common and exhausting necessity in recent years, as higher-ups have frequently canceled officers’ days off to staff the department’s vast list of responsibilities — including 911 calls, protests and security for international conferences and traveling dignitaries.
But for this group of six, prosecutors allege, overtime became a lucrative, illegal scheme.
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Internal investigators with the D.C. police department began looking into the alleged scheme when they saw irregularities in overtime submissions in the Fifth District, where the accused officers were working at the time, according to prosecutors. The investigators ultimately found that a group of employees in the district’s administrative office had routinely submitted false information about hours worked, including hours when they were not working or were otherwise unavailable. In some cases, they claimed overtime while traveling, both domestically and abroad, prosecutors said.
Former Sgt. Frantz Fulcher fraudulently received nearly $175,000, prosecutors allege. Officer Dorrie Smith-Cleere allegedly received more than $87,000, and Officer Thomas Krmenec allegedly received more than $89,000. Former Senior Officer Bernadette Richardson improperly collected more than $43,000. Former Lt. Peter Sheldon and civilian employee Johnnie Dyer were improperly paid $18,000 and $27,000, respectively, according to prosecutors.
The police employees could not immediately be reached for comment.
“These six officers abused their positions of power, exploiting the District and the residents they took an oath to serve and protect. No one is above the law, especially those trusted with enforcing it,” D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement. The chief of Schwalb’s public corruption section has been detailed to the U.S. attorney’s office to serve as lead prosecutor on the case.
The allegedly fraudulent payments represent a small fraction of the department’s overtime spending. Last fiscal year, the department spent nearly $134 million on overtime — a whopping sum that police officials have said they hope to reduce by filling staffing gaps.
The earnings of most of the accused officers were also small compared to some of the highest-paid D.C. police employees, who take overtime to extremes. Last fiscal year, the department’s top 25 earners made between $200,000 and $374,000 each in overtime alone, often doubling or tripling their salaries, according to documents D.C. police submitted to the D.C. Council. These top earners routinely log 14- to 18-hour work days, back to back, previous reporting has found.
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