At OT trial, captain called ‘key player’

A federal prosecutor on Monday described the former commander of the Boston Police Department’s evidence storage facility as the key player in a fraudulent overtime scheme, approving hundreds of overtime requests despite knowing the data was fabricated.

Richard Evans, who retired in 2021, oversaw the Evidence Control Unit in Hyde Park, where officers allegedly collected at least $200,000 in fraudulent overtime between 2015 and 2019, according to federal prosecutors. Evans and 14 other officers were charged, but four have since been acquitted by jury in a separate trial.

“This is not a case of someone leaving early one day or leaving early for a long weekend. This was a standardized system of padding overtime and stealing overtime pay,” Assistant US Attorney Kunal Pasricha told jurors in his opening statement at Evans’s trial in Boston. “Captain Evans not only committed theft and fraud himself, he helped other police officers engage in systemic theft and fraud.”

Evans has pleaded not guilty and has been free on personal recognizance since his arrest in 2021. In court Monday, Evans sat still throughout most of the prosecutor’s opening statement. But when Pasricha spoke about overtime “theft and fraud,” he repeatedly shook his head.

“It was a lengthy pattern of lies and falsification,” Pasricha told jurors. “The whole point of lying and to lie repeatedly was to get paid for time they weren’t working ... on hundreds if not thousands of occasions, Captain Evans signed off on falsely reported overtime slips for officers to get money they were not entitled to.”

Evans’s lawyer, Kevin J. Reddington, said that Evans was a member of the police department for 37 years and was nearing the end of his career when he allegedly participated in the overtime scheme.

Standing beside poster boards with pictures of the evidence warehouse and the type of materials stored there, Reddington said the department condoned the overtime practice and that Evans merely did what was expected of him.

“Not one person will say this is a conspiracy. It was a given, endemic, systemic, part of the system. Now, they’re all embarrassed,” Reddington said, referring to the department’s command staff.

Evans was fully aware of an alarm system at the warehouse and would not have engaged in criminal conduct that could readily be documented, Reddington said.

Reddington said Evans held the civil service rank of captain and has an “impeccable record” with the department.

“You don’t become a captain by being a dolt,” Reddington said.

Reddington told jurors that in order to convict Evans, they must conclude that he intended to steal.

“It can’t be a mistake or a good-faith error. It can’t be endemic or engrained in the system,” he said, adding that Evans and other officers “did not intend to steal.”

Four other officers were found not guilty of similar charges last year. Defense lawyers acknowledged the officers collected overtime payments for hours they didn’t work but said they were allowed to under longstanding department practice.

Nine other officers pleaded guilty to similar charges and are awaiting sentencing. At least two former officers are listed as potential witnesses against Evans, records show.

According to prosecutors, officers assigned to the evidence control unit could earn overtime pay by working “purge” shifts, which took place on weekdays from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and were aimed at managing and reducing inventory in the warehouse.