Massachusetts Cop Pleads Guilty to Pocketing $11,000 for Hours He Didn't Work

Kevin Sweeney pleaded guilty to fraud. He is the sixth state trooper to be accused of lying to get more overtime.

Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports/Newscom

A Massachusetts state trooper is pleading guilty to pocketing $11,000 in overtime pay for hours that he didn't actually work.

NBC Boston reports that Kevin Sweeney, 40, of the Massachusetts State Police (MSP) found a way to game the system in order to receive extra money for shifts that he either left early or did not work at all. As United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling told WCVB, "Sweeney concealed his fraud by submitting fraudulent citations designed to create the appearance that he had worked overtime hours that he had not, and falsely claimed in MSP paperwork and payroll entries that he had worked the entirety of his overtime shifts."

Of the $249,407 Sweeny received in 2015, overtime pay accounted for $111,808 of it. Of the $218,512 he earned in 2016, overtime pay made up $95,895.

Sweeney entered a guilty plea to one count of embezzlement from an agency receiving federal funds and to one count of wire fraud. According to MassLive, he is the sixth Massachusetts state trooper to be charged with such crimes and the second to plead guilty. The others charged include Lieutenant David Wilson, 57, Trooper Gary Herman, 45, former Trooper Paul Cesan, 50, retired Trooper Daren DeJong, 56, and Trooper Gregory Raftery, 47 (Raftery entered a guilty plea). All of the troopers were charged with the same crimes as Sweeney.

"Today's announced plea agreement is a direct result of the department's work to restore transparency and ensure accountability," MSP wrote in a statement. "Under the leadership of Colonel Gilpin, the State Police will continue to audit earnings from discretionary overtime and, as we did in the case resolved today, provide results to federal and state prosecutors."

A state police audit led to the discovery of the misconduct, reports Boston 25 News. The activities of over 40 MSP members are now under scrutiny.

Comments

[loveconstitution1789]

Massachusetts: Be glad that's all he pocketed.

[JesseAz]

It's all he plead guilty to, not all that he pocketed. Look at his OT pay numbers in the article.

[Tony]

Who allows illiterate morons to make that kind of money anyway?

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

Democrats.

[loveconstitution1789]

Democrats.

[Incomprehensible Bitching]

DEMOCRATICS YOU STUPID HILLBILLY MONSTER!

[Brian]

You poor dear.

[John C. Randolph]

Ever heard of this place called "Massachusetts"? I'll give you three guesses which faction of the ruling party reaps the lion's share of the graft there, dumbass.

-jcr

[Duke of url]

Their unions, and the puppets the unions elect?

[loveconstitution1789]

DemocRats

[Jerryskids]

And why is this a federal case? According to the article, he's the 6th of 46 troopers under investigation to plead. That's some kind of police force you got there that can't sniff out wide-spread fraud when it's going on right in their own department. Or maybe the problem is a little more systemic?

[JesseAz]

It would have gone to the feds if they believed the AG/local prosecutors were also involved.

[TangoDelta]

Or maybe the problem is a little more systemic?

Ding! I think we have a winner. If I had to guess, it likely runs from the Governor all the way down to the janitor who cleans the toilets at the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I'm sure wherever he was, in uniform or not, he was still being $11,103 worth of an asshole to someone.

If only they were as transparent for cracked heads as empty coffers.

[Hugh Akston]

Priorities

[Get To Da Chippah]

So when does he go back to work?

[JesseAz]

Based on his age... the two years of obvious fraud will count towards his pension. He'll probably claim a disability as the reason for his fraud. Boost his pension. And only have 11k removed from his highest year in response. So guessing.... 140ish k a year pension on the horizon as punishment.

[Exsqueezeyou]

"Sweeney concealed his fraud by submitting fraudulent citations..."

FFS how does that go unnoticed. Aren't those citations irreversible, like written in stone, or is that just another lie they tell the "civilian" to avoid changing or withdrawing them but actually do with impudence when it suits them.

[Exsqueezeyou]

"Sweeney entered a guilty plea .... to one count of wire fraud."

Yeah, with pay checks that big, one best have it directly deposited.

All those troopers in their 40's and they did not seem worried about losing their pensions, only padding them.

No mention of forfeiting those pensions as a penalty or at least having to prove that all that money was honestly earned like a victim of civil asset forfeiture

[Careless]

At least the corrupt cop was only being paid a quarter of a million a year

[Moo Cow]

Thats fucking crazy OT. I suppose their pensions include it in calculations?

[JesseAz]

Yeap. They sure do. And since he only admitted to 11k...... he gets the vast majority of his fraud towards his pension.

[creech]

Are you kidding - a Mass. trooper's base pay is around $125K?? No wonder kids think they should make $50,000 right out of high school just for showing up and doing a half assed job around the Shake Shack.

[Duke of url]

$250,000 a year!
And that doesn't even include all the other perks, like LEO discounts, free admissions, award ceremonies, and raping people on the way to jail without consequence.
It's almost as if these bloated parasites don't shove their fat snouts deep enough in the public trough already..

[NoVaNick]

You forgot the traffic and private security details, and full pension upon retirement after 20 years of service, or sooner if you claim disability from too much stress.

[NoVaNick]

Back when I grew up there, this would not have been considered a crime.

[Duke of url]

" Obviously, you're just jealous your criminal record and inability to achieve the required high standards, keeps you from joining such elite squads of heros"!
/ Cop suckers everywhere

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

OT: Interesting theory on why there were so many serial killers in the 70s and 80s.

[loveconstitution1789]

It would be interesting if more than a cursory testing of the theory proves it false.

The theory being: Did a "broken generation" of soldiers returning from World War II spawn America's so-called "golden age" of serial killers?

The theory being that WWII was so traumatic and there was no PTSD evaluation system nor mental health care, so some WWII vets raised their kids to be serial killers.

This is ridiculous for many reasons.

One major reason is that nearly 10 million US men served in the military around WWII. A small fraction of those served in combat. We would see a larger percentage of serial killers because so many Americans experienced the horrors of war.

A second flaw is that Tens of millions of foreign soldiers served and they experienced the same or worse horrors of war. If WWII horrors of war causes people to create murdering kids then the World should be flooded with serial killers.

Another flaw is that the serial killers mentioned were not WWII veterans themselves but their kids. WWII vets rarely discussed their experiences until the 1990s. Its not like these vets were taking out their horrors of war on their kids. They were mostly raising their kids like all parents that grew up before WWII, hard but fair. Corporal punishment was common. Drinking was common.

[loveconstitution1789]

(contd) Another flaw is that this 'horrors of war' standard does not hold up to veterans of all other war in the last 300 years. Revolutionary War vet kids did not suddenly become serial killers. Vietnam vet's kids did not suddenly become serial killers.

Those are 4 quick counters to bust that theory and I have not researched a single minute.

[Shirley Knott]

Well, of course you haven't. You never do.

Your first 'counter' is a non sequitur.
Your second 'counter' warrants serious attention, but not least because it seems to rely on a number of suppressed premises.
Your third 'counter' both ignores points made in the article and is risible on the face of it. Fallacy of composition, amongst other flaws.
Your fourth 'counter' suffers the same flaws as your second.

I don't buy his thesis, but it is not as summarily dismissible as your unresearched "counters" suggest.
As already noted on this blog and elsewhere PTSD is the 'replacement' term for 'shell shocked'. It was a known problem before WW2. Points against the author for not considering that.
It would be interesting to compare the impacts of WW1 vs WW2, as WW1 was, in many ways, more horrific than WW2. The challenge would be that the children of WW1 vets were soldiers in WW2. Did the serial killers spawned by WW1 "hide" in the midst of the brutality of WW2? Were the generational problems the author of the linked article sees as formative compounded by hitting multiple generations? Britain would be the better test subject rather than the US for this, as the US involvement in WW1 was small, triumphal, and brief.
It's a more interesting idea than you give it credit for, even if it turns out to be hogwash.

[TangoDelta]

There is also an easier explanation and that is that it is an assumed glut between 1950 and 2000 especially when you consider his book looks back 17,000 years. I'd imagine it would be much easier for a serial killer to hide or cover his tracks in earlier years simply because present day communications weren't available. It would be fairly easy to evade detection simply by going to the next county or state. Jack the Ripper was an easy one to identify because it appears to have been done all in the same place although he could have started in France or Scotland or even a few cities away and nobody made the connection. In that respect it certainly makes more sense that investigative techniques have improved and can tie the cases together more easily.

The other issue I have is the claim that ties it to "true detective and men's adventure magazines". Really?

So it's almost as if the person who's looking at the magazine cover is the one who's about to perpetrate the crime against the figure in the magazine. So it essentially put you in the killer's mind.

Hmm, sounds a lot like the 'evil video game or rock music made 'em do it' line of logic.
Where have we heard that before?

[loveconstitution1789]

Knott a single good comment as usual.

[IceTrey]

Biggest gang of crooks there is.

[AlgerHiss]

Let's stop calling these characters "trooper" or "officer" or "agent" or "special agent". They are armed government workers, most of them union members. That's all they are. Most could never get a good job in the private sector.

And anyone that willingly puts on one of those insidious campaign hats everyday, is nothing but a dangerous, sadistic psycho.

American copping: You will trust these people at your peril, ESPECIALLY if you've done nothing wrong.

[majil]

The next chief of police right there baby!

[Juice]

Even without the fraud, the fucker was pulling in over $100k a year.

[Rich]

All of the troopers were charged with the same crimes as Sweeney.

And with Co-lose-ion, right? RIGHT?!