Special agent: Troopers skipped shifts, inflated ticket counts in OT theft case
WORCESTER ― The roads Saturday nights in Massachusetts are often patrolled by the “BAT” Mobile, a customized state police barracks on wheels used to book drunken drivers at sobriety checkpoints, federal prosecutors pursuing overtime theft charges have noted this week.
But the weather was poor the night of Sept. 12, 2015, they noted Wednesday in U.S. District Court, and a checkpoint scheduled for the Worcester area was called off.
Instead, documents entered into evidence indicated, numerous Central Massachusetts (Troop C) troopers and four BAT Mobile troopers were slated to perform four-hour “saturation” patrols — operations in which troopers would look to make drunken driving arrests from their cruisers.
The Troop C troopers performed the patrols for four hours, the documents indicated. But cruiser location tracking data for the BAT Mobile troopers, prosecutors told jurors, revealed they never even left their homes that night.
The example was one of many presented Wednesday that prosecutors say support allegations that the BAT Mobile’s commanders, Lt. Daniel J. Griffin and Sgt. William R. Robertson, stole tens of thousands in federal overtime by accepting money for time they didn’t work.
While lawyers for the pair have argued their clients’ actions were commonplace in state police, prosecutors have argued the small traffic unit Griffin and Robertson managed knowingly stole federal overtime funds by not working shifts that troopers in larger units did work.
The handful of unit troopers, three of whom were granted immunity in exchange for cooperation, all coordinated entering false times of duty that inflated the hours they worked, prosecutors have said.
Jurors Wednesday received a more detailed picture of the alleged scheme, as the special agent who uncovered the alleged fraud testified for hours about partial shifts worked, entire shifts skipped and allegations that the troopers inflated the numbers of tickets they issued.
The agent, Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Tanya Chavez of the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, testified that she began looking into the unit during an overtime probe of a separate Massachusetts State Police unit.
While Chavez was not asked to name the unit for legal reasons, federal prosecutors charged many members of state police Troop E with overtime fraud and it was disbanded.
Federal OT draws attention
Chavez testified Wednesday she was drawn to Griffin’s unit, the traffic sections program, after she noticed a lot of federal overtime going to its handful of troopers, all of whom listed the same shifts.
A detailed audit that relied on cruiser tracking information, gas station fill-up data and even cellphone records showed five troopers collectively accepted about $135,000 for federal overtime they never worked from 2015 to 2017, Chavez said.
As documents of supposed shifts worked were shown on a screen, Chavez testified that technology that tracks where and when a state police cruiser is located showed, over and over, that the troopers weren’t where they said they were.
Chavez testified at length about specific commutes the data showed the troopers made on specific days and how the data proved the hours they claimed to be false.
She said the data for the Sept. 12, 2015, shift showed neither Griffin nor Robertson was at the saturation shift that Troop C troopers performed.
However, in an email displayed for jurors Griffin sent to this unit two days later, the lieutenant wrote, “On Saturday, Sept. 12 Troop C conducted an abbreviated BAT supported saturation” for four hours.
The Saturday night example is one of many Chavez detailed Wednesday, including shifts in which she said Griffin could be seen ending his shift early and driving to a property he owns on Cape Cod.
The $135,000 collective theft estimate was likely conservative, Chavez’s testimony indicated. She said she gave officers credit for time they appeared to travel to and from overtime sites — time they are not supposed to be paid for but that she excluded out of caution.
Chavez estimated Griffin claimed more than $60,000 for nearly 600 hours — the equivalent of 75 eight-hour working days — of unworked overtime over the three years. Robertson, she tallied, claimed more than $32,000 for more than 360 hours of false time.
Evidence of federal forms destroyed
Prosecutors have presented evidence that Robertson ordered a trooper to destroy some of the federal forms where they logged citations for the fraudulent shifts and that the trooper, of his own initiative, burned others.
Chavez testified Wednesday that she only ever received a handful of the most detailed shift forms from state police and that other information she did receive indicates the troopers habitually inflated the number of tickets they reported issuing.
Chavez said that while troopers often listed giving five to eight tickets per shift, a review of the citations state police turned over to her office suggests they often listed duplicate copies.
Each ticket police issue has a number of carbon copies, some of which go to court, others of which go to the driver or are kept by police.
Chavez went over numerous instances in which she said it appeared troopers only got to their listed number of tickets by including different carbon copies of the same ticket.
A trooper might say he issued eight tickets, for instance, when in reality he issued four tickets and included one duplicate in the backup for all four tickets.
Chavez testified that for one trooper immunized for his role in the fraud, Timothy Weldon, state police only ever turned over one total citation as evidence. She said evidence also indicated a trooper who less frequently joined the patrols — but who was not included in the $135,000 figure — listed tickets he had written days before on other shifts.
Chavez said she ultimately only got a handful of detailed shift documents, called 637 forms, which showed that officers listed the wrong times for when they issued citations to make it appear they had worked entire shifts.
One of the immunized troopers, Dennis Kelley, wept last week as he admitted to destroying many of the 637 forms. Kelley, a former Troop E member, also testified to improperly accepting overtime while with a former unit he was not asked to name.
Few forms surfaced in search
Chavez said she scrutinized hundreds of thousands of emails turned over from state police looking for 637 forms, but found very few. The troopers, Kelley testified last week, generally delivered hard copies to his desk.
Chavez said she only ever found one 637 for Griffin and two for Robertson. The rest of the information, she said, was gleaned from other surviving forms that listed some, though not all, of the data she had sought.
Lawyers for Griffin and Robertson did not have a chance to cross-examine Chavez Wednesday, as she was set to resume questioning by the government Thursday.
The defense has argued that state police have, both in policy and practice, collected overtime for hours not worked for years including as a past practice in the traffic sections program.
They argue the state police union contract is silent on the subject of federal overtime and that the omission, coupled with alleged past practice, makes it impossible for prosecutors to meet the standard of proof regarding criminal intent in the case.
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This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Troopers skipped shifts, inflated ticket counts in OT theft case
