FHP lieutenant fired after theft charges
A Florida Highway Patrol lieutenant arrested Wednesday on theft charges has been fired, the FHP confirmed.
Robert King Purser, 50, is accused of overbilling a Hialeah engineering firm more than $ 200,000 through his side business, which supplied off- duty officers to work sites, prosecutors say.
The investigation into Purser’s business, 208 Enterprises of South Florida Inc. began inApril 2012, according to a Palm Beach County StateAttorney’s Office probable cause affidavit.
The
conclusion:
Purser ran an “organized scheme to defraud” Gulfstream by overbilling the Hialeah company $ 208,394.25 from 2010 to 2012, prosecutors say.
“Our public corruption unit detectives did a great job and put a significant amount of hours into the investigation,” said Al Johnson, chief assistant state attorney for Palm Beach County.
Gulfstream needed offduty officers to patrol its maintenance and rehabilitationwork on Florida East Coast Railroad sites throughout the state, the affidavit stated.
Purser’s company supplied these officers, according to the affidavit, which explained the two companies’ arrangement:
Purser’s firm would bill Gulfstream for the total number of man hours at each project. Gulfstream would pay Purser’s company, which would then pay the
The problem, according to the affidavit, was Purser was billing Gulfstream for fictitious shifts, and also double- billing the company.
Detectives searched Purser’s home on Jan. 23, 2013. They say they found two types of invoices. There were the fraudulent ones that listed ‘ phantom officers’ who weren’t part of any job — or who didn’t even exist. And they matched invoices received by Gulfstream, prosecutors say.
There were also the real invoices, which listed the people who actually worked.
Herb Spear, the president of Gulfstream, couldn’t be reached for comment. In a February 2013 interview with investigators, he said he believed hewas gettingwhathepaid for.
officers and troopers.