Hub officer charged in detail pay scheme
By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff | February 24, 2005
A Boston police officer is charged with felony larceny for allegedly forging signatures on timecards last year and collecting pay for detail shifts he never worked, prosecutors said.
Patrolman Michael Lopriore, who has been on the force since 1994, allegedly was paid $1,102 for five shifts he did not work at an East Boston construction site in January and March 2004, according to Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.
Conley's office filed a criminal complaint against Lopriore on Friday, alleging larceny by scheme. If convicted, Lopriore could be sentenced to five years in state prison.
"The evidence suggest a serious breach of public trust," Conley said in an interview yesterday.
Boston police officials declined to discuss Lopriore's status in the department, citing a policy against commenting on cases before they are resolved.
A phone number for Lopriore could not be found last night, and police officials declined to contact the officer on the Globe's behalf.
Conley said an Avon-based construction company, D'Allesandro Corp., sent a letter to the Police Department in April 2004, saying executives believed fraudulent detail timecards were being submitted for payment.
Police officers are routinely hired by private companies to provide security or direct traffic at road construction sites. Officers submit timecards for the details to the Police Department, which pays the officers and bills the companies.
The timecards are supposed to be signed by supervisors at the detail job sites, attesting to the officers' presence. Conley alleged that Lopriore forged signatures of D'Allesandro representatives on five occasions.
An investigation by a special prosecutions unit in Conley's office and the Police Department's Anti-Corruption Unit found that in 2004 on Jan. 7, Jan. 10, March 18, March 19, and March 20, the officer submitted timecards and collected pay for details at a construction site on Chelsea Street. Prosecutors say he never worked those shifts.
"Any employee in the private sector -- a janitor, a food service worker, or a bank teller, anyone -- would not be allowed to get away with filing out false timecards," Conley said. "Nor should a police officer, who is sworn to uphold the law, be allowed to fabricate details and make money fraudulently."
A Globe investigation in September disclosed extensive problems with the Police Department's detail payroll system, finding that payroll records indicated that 396 officers had been paid to work two details in separate locations at the same times between December 2001 and July 2004.
Police officials concluded that many of those cases were clerical errors: Either officers wrote the wrong dates or times on timecards, or data entry clerks entered them incorrectly on the payroll computer, causing the appearance of overlapping shifts.
Seven officers are facing disciplinary action after internal affairs investigations determined they were paid for overlapping shifts that could not be explained by clerical error.
Since September, police officials have ordered regular audits of detail pay, to ensure that officers are not paid for shifts they have not worked.
A police spokesman, Sergeant Thomas Sexton, said yesterday that the department is continuing its overhaul of the detail system to prevent cheating.
"The Boston Police Department continues to work to have the most efficient system in place to ensure that sworn personnel abide by and are held accountable to the rules and regulations of the Boston Police Department as they pertain to details," Sexton said.
Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.
unless you're a cop
.
Ahhh, the ole no-show job trick that the mafia made famous. This cop must've pissed somebody off. He was probably talking trash about the boss within earshot of him or pulled over the boss's beer buddy and wouldn't take back the ticket.