Ex-cop charged in alleged OT scheme
Federal authorities say a retired Boston Police captain played a prominent role in a years-long scheme involving overtime abuse at the department’s evidence warehouse, defrauding the city of more than $12,000 for himself and signing off on false OT reports for others.
Retired Police Capt. Richard Evans was released on his own recognizance by federal Judge Marianne Bowler on Tuesday after his arrest on federal charges relating to wire fraud and theft.
Evans “is accused of betraying the public’s trust, and the reputation of his fellow police officers,” said FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Joseph Bonavolonta. “It is deeply troubling when officers who have sworn to uphold the law violate their oath and use their badge as a license to commit a crime.”
Evans, 62, of Hanover, was in charge of the Evidence Control Unit — the ECU — which processed and stored various bits of evidence at the department’s warehouse. And that’s where, the feds say, the scheme to abuse overtime hours ran from 2015 through 2019.
The indictment against Evans alleges that he stole $12,395 between March 2015 and April 2016 by claiming hours he didn’t work, and that he signed off on “dozens” of others’ false reports to do the same.
The indictment said the participants of the conspiracy — “known and unknown” — defrauded the city of “tens of thousands of dollars each year in fraudulent overtime.
Evans made $251,535 in total compensation in 2019, according to Boston payroll records. He made $155,886 in regular pay and $257,070 in total compensation in 2018, and a total of $228,727 including $146,946 in base pay the year before that, according to records.
Last fall, nine active and retired BPD officers were charged in an alleged multiyear overtime fraud scheme that netted over $200,000, according to prosecutors.
The BPD in a statement said that its own anti-corruption unit had uncovered the wrongdoing in the ECU.
“The allegations contained in this indictment by a senior law enforcement officer are not reflective of the conscientious hardworking members of the Boston Police Department,” said Superintendent-inChief Gregory Long, who’s leading the department while newly appointed Commissioner Dennis White is on leave after old domestic violence allegations resurfaced. “No police officer is above the law, today’s indictment sends a strong message that this conduct will not be tolerated or ignored.”
Boston acting Mayor Kim Janey told reporters that the allegations against Evans are “disturbing.”
“It breaks public trust,” Janey said in a press conference on Tuesday. “It dishonors the thousands of officers who serve our communities every day with honesty, integrity and bravery. I am committed to uncovering and rooting out behavior among officers that is inconsistent with our community values.”