They were paid to police the streets, staff offices, and perform work for the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). Prosecutors say that for thousands of those hours, they were elsewhere entirely.
Six current and former MPD members are accused of manipulating the department’s overtime system, forging supervisors’ approvals, and collecting more than $441,000 for 5,618 hours they did not work, according to arrest warrants filed Tuesday in the D.C. Superior Court.
In some cases, investigators allege employees claimed overtime while on annual leave, traveling outside Washington, or even outside the country. Others allegedly collected MPD pay while working secondary jobs.
“These MPD members betrayed that trust by scheming to collect unearned, undeserved income, costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said. “They will be held accountable, and my office remains focused on rooting out fraud and protecting the American taxpayer.”
The figures described by prosecutors are substantial.
Former Sgt. Frantz Fulcher is accused of fraudulently collecting $174,915 for 1,861 hours he did not work. Officer Thomas Krmenec allegedly received $89,478 for 1,103 hours of fraudulent work, while Officer Dorrie Smith-Cleere is accused of collecting $87,398 for 1,169.25 hours.
Former Senior Police Officer Bernadette Richardson allegedly received $43,352 for 813.5 hours she did not work. Civilian employee Johnnie Dyer is accused of collecting $27,722 for 518.5 hours, and former Lt. Peter Sheldon is alleged to have received $18,273 for 152.75 hours.
Together, the six submitted 11,017.5 hours and were paid more than $935,000 in 2024. Investigators ultimately determined that 5,618 of those hours, slightly more than half of the hours submitted, were fraudulent, according to prosecutors.
The allegations describe what authorities contend was not an occasional padded timesheet but rather repeated manipulation of the machinery MPD uses to authorize and pay for overtime.
Investigators say employees forged supervisory signatures on overtime authorization forms and used their administrative positions to process or approve fraudulent overtime. The defendants were assigned to MPD’s Fifth District Administrative Office.
To determine whether officers were where their paperwork claimed they were, investigators reconstructed their movements and activities using an unusually extensive digital trail.
Authorities examined body-worn camera footage, police radio and GPS data, cell-site location data, cellphone records, license plate reader data, annual leave and travel records, emails, computer network data, building access logs, personnel files, and overtime documentation submitted through MPD’s Timesheet Manager Application.
Prosecutors said those records repeatedly contradicted what appeared on the employees’ time sheets.
MPD’s Internal Affairs Division opened the investigation after detecting irregularities in overtime submissions, including unusually high overtime hours and discrepancies between employees’ reported work and independent records of their activities.
All six face charges of first-degree fraud, first-degree theft, forgery, and uttering.
The case also reveals an unusual wrinkle in the District’s limited ability to police corruption within its own government.
Under the Home Rule Act, the D.C. Attorney General’s Office generally cannot prosecute adult felony cases. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, a federal office, handles those prosecutions.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s office has sought to bridge that gap by assigning attorneys to the U.S. Attorney’s Office as special assistant U.S. attorneys, enabling them to prosecute local fraud and public corruption cases.
Jeremy Morris, chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section in Schwalb’s office, is prosecuting the MPD case while serving in that federal role.
“These six officers abused their positions of power, exploiting the District and the residents they took an oath to serve and protect,” Schwalb said. “No one is above the law, especially those trusted with enforcing it.”
The allegations carry another consequence beyond the $441,137 prosecutors say disappeared through fraudulent time sheets. Police officers hold one of government’s most powerful positions, entrusted with stopping, detaining and arresting residents suspected of breaking the law.
Here, prosecutors allege that people inside that institution manipulated the government’s own records for personal gain.
Schwalb said the arrangement with federal prosecutors allows his office to pursue precisely that kind of alleged breach of public trust, despite Home Rule restrictions.
“While the Home Rule Act does not grant my office the jurisdiction to directly prosecute these cases, through our partnership with the USAO, we are able to protect taxpayer dollars and root out local public corruption,” Schwalb said. “I encourage D.C. residents to report suspected public corruption to my office.”
