State Police relieve four more of duty in overtime probe, pilot body camera program coming

The Massachusetts State Police, as part of the Department’s ongoing audit of overtime earnings, have identified discrepancies between overtime pay earned and actual hours worked for four additional Department members.

As with other members whose discretionary overtime shifts were flagged by Department investigators, State Police opened Internal Affairs cases for the four members and referred information related to the alleged discrepancies to state and federal prosecutors for their review for potential prosecution.

The Department today relieved the four personnel of duty temporarily and is scheduling internal hearings to determine what their duty status will be while internal and external investigations into their overtime shifts are conducted.

“Today’s actions are the result of our continued review of records and data indicative of whether Department members were present and working overtime shifts for which they were paid,” said Colonel Kerry A. Gilpin, superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police. “Our commitment to the public, and to the vast majority of Troopers who conduct themselves with integrity and dedication to duty every day, is to identify anyone who has violated their oath, and we continue to do just that.”

The audit of discretionary overtime traffic enforcement shifts is continuing amid numerous other reforms the Department is implementing, including installation of GPS systems in cruisers, audits of the 50 highest earners for each quarter, and a pilot program for body cameras expected to be in place by early next year.

The discrepancies announced today stem from certain traffic enforcement overtime shifts the four were assigned to work when they were members of the former Troop E. The Department earlier this year moved the four barracks responsible for patrolling the Massachusetts Turnpike and the metropolitan tunnels system to three geographic troops.

The four additional members announced today bring the number of department members for whom the Department has uncovered varying numbers of suspect overtime shifts – and whose names were referred to the United States Attorney and state Attorney General for criminal investigation – to 46.