Former Boston cop from Braintree avoids prison time for overtime fraud

BOSTON – A former Boston police sergeant from Braintree was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Boston after pleading guilty to overtime fraud at the Boston Police Department’s evidence warehouse, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Gerard O’Brien, 66, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to two years of supervised release with six months to be served in home detention. O’Brien was also ordered to pay $25,930 in restitution and a $5,000 fine.

In June 2021, O’Brien pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit theft from programs receiving federal money and one count of embezzlement from an agency receiving federal money.

Between December 2016 and February 2019, O’Brien personally collected about $25,930 for overtime hours he did not work, prosecutors said.

As a supervisor, O’Brien approved fraudulent overtime slips submitted by other officers, prosecutors said.

More than a dozen Boston police officers have been charged with overtime fraud at the warehouse, including officers from Quincy, Canton and Milton. O’Brien is the seventh officer to be sentenced.

Last month, Thomas Nee, 67, of Quincy, was sentenced to two years of probation after he pleaded guilty to fraudulently collecting overtime pay. The former Boston police union president had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit theft and one count of embezzlement from a program that receives federal money.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Former Boston cop from Braintree sentenced for overtime fraud