Officer resigns amid citation discrepancy
A Lebanon, Ohio, police officer resigned recently after his department discovered he was filing internal paperwork to make it appear that he was writing traffic tickets, but the drivers were not actually being cited, officials said.
An investigation into the now-former officer Eric Holmes has been sent to the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office to review for potential criminal charges.
Documents from an internal investigation state Holmes joined the Lebanon Police Department in 2015, but investigators said he started having issues with his tickets around about four years ago.
“From 2018 through 2022, Officer Holmes allegedly issued 613 traffic citations, in which 140 or 22% of those appear to [be] missing from court records,” the investigation states.
Police Chief Jeffrey Mitchell said in a statement that Holmes “conducted traffic stops where no citation was issued to the driver and later ... would complete a traffic citation form and submit this citation to the agency for internal accountability only.”
For those tickets in question, nothing made it to court, no one was cited or fined, Mitchell said.
Holmes was placed on administrative leave on March 3 and later resigned, officials said.
According to the internal investigation, Holmes told his supervisors that he would be “frustrated” as he was writing a ticket because he was in a rush and dealing with multiple things, then stop issuing the ticket and let the driver go.
Holmes denied that he was filing the citation internally to boost his numbers and instead said he felt he was doing it out of embarrassment and frustration with himself.
The department said the fraudulent citations were discovered during an internal audit and Holmes resigned in the midst of the investigation. The department has taken steps to better track citations and whether they are being properly handled, the release said.
“The actions of the former employee were his alone and no citizen was issued a citation from these fraudulent citations,” Mitchell said. “The actions of this former employee [do] not reflect the values and character of this agency.”
The Warren County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment on the situation.