Brickbat: Leaving So Soon?

Former Sarasota County, Florida, sheriff's deputy Preston Hines has been charged with felony scheme to defraud after billing for overtime he did not actually work. Officials said Hines worked 10 overtime details between April and September of this year. But they said he routinely arrived 15–20 minutes late and left hours early.

Comments

[Don't look at me!]

It’s ok. Taxpayers have lots of money.

[Carey Allison]

I’m not going to defend this action. And I don’t like having (my) tax dollars filched. But really, compared to what politicians cost us, this is chicken-feed money.

A felony? Really, a felony? Where are the jurors who will recognize this as overcharging and nullify? It might – might – send a message to the D.A. in the case about overcharging.

Now, on the other hand, a civil action requiring repayment of the ill-acquired amount, plus loss of job, plus a civil fine of 3X or even 7X the amount of ill gotten gain seems fair and reasonable and capable of disincentivizing the behavior without leveling a felony charge and seeking a felony conviction for an amount of chicken-feed that probably wouldn’t feed a dozen chickens for a year.

[Rossami]

Overcharging? Maybe. But if we're going to overcharge anybody, it should definitely be the police and prosecutors who so zealously invented then implemented the practice of overcharging the rest of us.

[Jerryskids]

Probably on a secret mission for the FBI. Very hush-hush. Double Top Secret, can't talk about it. But he was working, honest.

[Fist of Etiquette]

He broke the sanctity of cop OT.

[Adans smith]

The devil is in the details.

[Crackers Boy]

You know... stories about bad cops are hardly "Brickbats" any more. It's more like good stories would be Brickbats, since they occur so infrequently.

CB

[Rossami]

It's depressing that these articles about prosecutions of crooked cops are newsworthy. In any private company, the cheating employee would have been quietly walked to the door long before it got to this point.

[LIBertrans]

In Freehold, Iowa, Presst Hiney'd sue the bastids for unreasonable publicity--that and violating his qualified immunity and freedom to asset-forfeiture the county!

[markm23]

“Former deputy” Does this mean he was fired? Or does it mean he retired, after puffing up his last years pay and therefore his retirement pay with fraudulent overtime? (In California, there are many retired policemen whose retirement pay is higher than their regular pay ever was, because of all the overtime they worked in their last years on the job. And they weren’t even committing fraud, although I wonder how effective a 60 year old cop can be the end of a double shift.)

Yes, it’s a felony to steal large amounts, and fraud is theft. The article doesn’t say, but I expect he did this many times and is far over the maximum to charge a misdemeanor instead of a felony – even before you consider the effect on retirement pay.

[KathleenTodd]

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