Dr. Frank Kardasz (Ed.D)

Firms That Hired Officers for Security Are Subpoenaed

By Ernesto Londono, Washington Post Staff Writer. 06/24/07

Montgomery County prosecutors have subpoenaed several companies that employ police officers as the county widens its criminal investigation into allegations that some officers allowed their county and off-duty security work shifts to overlap, according to sources familiar with the probe.

The subpoenas for payroll records broadened the scope of the inquiry beyond Grady Management Inc., the Silver Spring real estate company that alerted the county police department to the alleged double-dipping, according to a law enforcement source and others with knowledge of the case. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

Nine officers were suspended with pay in May in connection with the investigation. Payroll records of an officer who recently retired and a handful of other officers who also worked for Grady but have not been suspended also have come under scrutiny.

The probe began this spring shortly after officer Victor Valerio lost his part-time job with Grady. After his departure, Grady officials contacted the police department to report their suspicion that some officers were double-dipping, which prompted a review of payroll records.

In some of the most flagrant cases, investigators looking at two years of payroll records found discrepancies totaling between $15,000 and $20,000, the sources said.

It could not be determined how many subpoenas have been issued to private companies where officers work or what period of time they cover.

The fallout from the case could be substantial for both the police department and that state's attorney's office, particularly if any officers are criminally charged. The investigation has left the Silver Spring police station, home to seven of the nine suspended officers, short-handed.

It could also imperil past and current prosecutions in which officers in the double-dipping investigation played key roles. In recent weeks, several defense attorneys have asked prosecutors whether any of the officers were involved in active cases. The names have not been disclosed, but defense attorneys have been told, on a case-by-case basis, whether any suspended officers played a major role in a case.

State's Attorney John McCarthy and Police Chief J. Thomas Manger have declined to discuss the investigation. But Manger said in a recent interview that the agencies are conducting a thorough probe, regardless of the potential problems for the department or the effect on its reputation.

"There is nobody who wants to sweep this under the rug," Manger said. "If we want to say with sincerity that we are an organization with integrity, the only way to do that is to take this investigation in any way the evidence goes."

Officers say one significant challenge investigators will probably face is the possibility that a large number of officers will come under scrutiny because of the department's practice of not formally recording compensatory time.

County officers routinely arrange to shave a few hours from their standard shifts when they have worked additional hours the previous day or have made other informal arrangements with supervisors. Permission to take comp time, which officers refer to as "book time," is frequently the result of an oral agreement and is not recorded.

A number of officers have been able to justify the overlap between their county and Grady shifts by explaining the "book time" arrangements they made with their supervisors, sources familiar with the case said.

Another investigative challenge is the sheer volume of part-time work records. Part-time jobs require the approval of the police chief and the county Ethics Commission, and permission is given either on a yearly or an indefinite basis. Ethics Commission officials approved more than 960 applications from officers to perform part-time jobs in the past three years.

Several have been authorized to work for numerous employers. In one extreme case, an officer was approved to work for more than 40 private employers during a four-year period, according to data compiled by the ethics group.

Part-time work by officers is common in the Washington area and nationally. Private security jobs, sometimes performed in uniform, are among the most coveted positions because they can pay up to $50 an hour. Some Montgomery officers say they couldn't comfortably raise a family in the community they serve on their government salary alone.

But the proliferation of part-time work by officers has raised concerns about perceived and actual conflicts of interest, particularly in cases where officers employ or recruit their colleagues for part-time jobs.

Retrieved June 23, 2007 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/23/AR2007062300609.html