'I’ve just been involved in a crime': Trooper weeps on stand, saying he shredded OT documents

WORCESTER ― A former state trooper granted immunity in an alleged overtime theft scheme broke down on the stand in federal court Friday as he alleged being ordered to shred documents by one of his two unit commanders.

“I’ve just been involved in a crime,” former trooper Dennis Kelley, 56, recalled thinking after his sergeant, William R. Robertson, allegedly ordered him to shred the paperwork.

In at times halting testimony given as he held back tears, Kelley admitted to shredding a file he alleged Robertson ordered him to destroy in 2017, as well as, on his own initiative, taking more files home and burning them when he learned a captain was looking for them.

“Don’t (expletive) tell the feds anything,” Kelley alleged his lieutenant, Daniel Griffin, told him in a phone conversation after he learned federal prosecutors were targeting the unit.

Under cross-examination, Kelley admitted he never told Griffin about burning the paperwork, falsely telling him he didn’t know where it was.

Kelley also admitted that he improperly collected overtime for hours he didn't work earlier in his career in a different state police unit, and that he “probably” only told prosecutors about that within the past two weeks.

Kelley is the second former trooper to testify against Robertson and Griffin, commanders of a state police traffic control unit federal prosecutors say collectively stole more than $130,000 in federal funds from 2015 to 2017.

Prosecutors have presented evidence that the handful of members of the unit double-dipped by starting federally funded traffic enforcement programs while on their normal shifts, and also defrauded the feds by not working the entire overtime shifts as required.

Leaving early

On the stand Friday, Kelley testified that the group — which was supposed to conduct campaigns such as Click-it-or-Ticket and distracted driving between 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. — instead started at or before 3 p.m. and worked for about an hour.

Kelley said the group generally left by 4 15 p.m. but, at the direction of Griffin, all falsely filled out the grant paperwork and timesheets to certify they were there until 7:30 p.m.

Kelley said they also showed up late and sometimes left early for federally funded sobriety checkpoints, while collecting for the full eight hours.

“We knew it was wrong,” Kelley said before U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman sustained an objection from the defense. A separate comment Kelley made about knowing it was wrong personally — witnesses are only allowed to testify to their own beliefs — was allowed to stand.

Kelley, over several hours of testimony Friday, said he was the person Griffin tasked with doing much of the paperwork regarding the federal grants.

As prosecutors displayed photographs of some of the paperwork for jurors, Kelley affirmed that officers listed fake times for when they gave real citations on grant documents to make it look like the tickets were written over the duration of the shift.

Kelley said that, when word got out in 2017 that a separate unit was under investigation for overtime theft, Robertson approached him as he walked into the building for work.

'Get rid of these'

“He looked really angry, and he came towards me with a folder, and he hit me in the chest with it,” Kelley testified. “He was snarling. I mean, enraged. I’ve never seen him like that.

“He said, ‘Get rid of these,’” he recalled, adding that Robertson got in his face and repeated the order with an expletive.

Kelley testified he walked over to a shredder and quickly did as he was told, noticing as he did so that the records appeared to be related to the federal grant overtime.

Kelley testified to thinking that he had just been involved in a crime. He testified there were still other similar records left in the office that he, the following year, learned a department captain had asked to see.

“I got scared. I did the stupidest thing I’ve ever done — the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Kelley said. “I took the rest of those 637 (forms), I took them home, and I burned them.”

Asked why he did so, he replied that the files “would have showed everything that we had done there, with the times, the hours, and everything.”

Kelley testified that after burning the documents at home, he called up Robertson — who by then had transferred to another unit — and told him what he’d done.

“Good,” he recalled Robertston replying.

Kelly broke down several times as he testified, at one point dabbing his eyes with a tissue.

Cross-examination

Under cross-examination, Kelley told Robertson’s lawyer, Stanley W. Norkunas, that it was fair to say he called Robertson — with whom he’d had a good relationship — in part because he was looking for emotional support.

“Yes,” Kelley replied when asked whether he was emotional on the phone. Norkunas then implied with a question that Robertson may have been trying to be supportive with his comment.

Under further questioning, Kelley agreed that, aside from his allegations regarding the file he said Robertson ordered him to shred, Robertson never asked him to shred any other documents.

Under cross-examination from Griffin’s lawyer, Thomas M. Hoopes, Kelley admitted that he’d improperly acquired overtime for hours he never worked when he was part of a different state police troop earlier in his career.

While the troop was not mentioned to jurors for legal reasons, Kelley testified earlier Friday that he spent years in Troop E, the now-disbanded troop where overtime fraud led to the prosecution of multiple troopers.

Hoopes asked Kelley multiple times when exactly it was that Kelley told federal prosecutors about his prior conduct. Kelley, after initially stating he couldn’t remember, eventually said he had “probably’ only told federal prosecutors about that when he met them a couple of weeks ago to prepare for trial.

Kelley further admitted to Hoopes that he lied to Griffin about burning the federal grant forms after Griffin at one point asked him where they were.

Office search

Kelley admitted that he told Griffin he didn’t know where they were, and that he then proceeded to go around the office with Griffin searching for them for two days.

Both Hoopes and Norkunas emphasized through their questioning that Kelley’s testimony for the government was extremely important to him, shielding him from losing his pension and potentially going to jail.

Both asked questions that showed skepticism about whether Kelley believed what he was doing was wrong at the time he did it.

Kelley, who made $171,000 in 2017, testified that he did know what he was doing was wrong at the time, and admitted to doing it anyhow.

He agreed with Hoopes that at one point Griffin had texted him telling him Kelley did “everything right,” and that Griffin told other team members he thought the unit would be OK because all the tickets they wrote were “legit.”

Intent will be an important issue jurors will have to consider when deciding the case, court documents indicate. Officers in Boston were acquitted of overtime theft in a separate case earlier this year after arguing that their actions were accepted by superiors and normalized in department culture.

On the stand Friday, Kelley was asked whether, in the unit he was in before, the overtime theft was perpetrated by troopers, sergeants, lieutenants and captains.

“Yes,” he replied each time.

Jurors have not heard testimony about the Boston case, which had to do with departmental, not federal, overtime.

Prosecutors have noted throughout Griffin and Robertson’s trial that the federal grant required troopers to work all the time they claimed.

Defense lawyers have argued that the state police union contract — which is silent on the process regarding federal overtime — is relevant to the case.

Under cross-examination from defense lawyer Jason M. Strojny Friday, Kevin Stanton, a top official at the state office that administered the federal grant, testified that the union contract had no bearing on the grant requirements.

“The federal government tells us what the rules or regulations are, regardless of the union contracts or anything,” said Stanton, who serves as executive director of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security’s Office of Grants and Research.

The trial resumes Monday.

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This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: In Worcester court, troopers accused of overtime fraud