Ex-San Leandro cop busted for exploiting payroll
A former San Leandro police sergeant will serve two years of felony probation and pay more than $46,000 for abusing his administrative privileges to approve overtime he did not work, the Alameda County District Attorney said Thursday.
Robert Frank Sanchez oversaw the San Leandro Police Department’s payroll and timekeeping systems in 2019 and 2020, years he served as a professional standards administrative sergeant.
He took advantage of that role by adding unauthorized overtime directly into the payroll system, and editing records to restore vacation, sick and compensatory time he had already used.
His adjustments prompted questions within the department in March 2020, and police brass referred the case to a district attorney inspector the following month. The district attorney’s investigation found that taxpayers lost $16,702.88 due to Sanchez’s fraud, which consisted of claiming overtime while on vacation and also erasing documentation of vacation or sick days he had taken.
But Sanchez’s attorney, Michael Rains, offered a different narrative, saying the 19-year veteran had been “run ragged” with more than 40 different duties, causing his workload to spill into his evenings at home for several years. At some point, Rains said, Sanchez threw up his hands and decided to start charging the city for that extra work.
“His biggest fault in all of this was not getting the approval to work some of these hours,” Rains said, noting that his client often logged in to the computer system from home or from a hotel when he was taking his daughter to college.
Sanchez retired from the department last year and pleaded no contest to the grand theft charges in June.
In addition to his probation sentence issued on Sept. 1, Sanchez will pay fees to the San Leandro city attorney and contribute up to $27,940 to cover the cost of an independent audit. He will also serve 240 hours of community service.
The former sergeant is eligible to receive a pension. Rains is corresponding with pension administrators, asking that the amount not be impacted by Sanchez’s felony conviction.