61-Year-Old Former Boston Police Officer Sentenced For Bilking The City Out Of Money in Overtime Scam

Monday, August 12, 2024, 9:00 A.M. ET. 2 Minute Read, By Art Fletcher: Englebrook Independent News,

BOSTON, MA.- On Thursday, August 8, 2024, a 61-year-old former Boston Police Officer appeared in U.S. District Court in Boston, Massachusetts, and was sentenced to a combination of home detention and supervised release in connection with a $20,000 overtime fraud scheme.

     James Carnes, 61, of Canton, Massachusetts, appeared in U.S. District Court in Boston and was sentenced by U.S. District Magistrate Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton to two years of supervised release, with the first six months to be served as home detention. Carnes was also ordered to pay a $5000 fine and $20,106 in restitution.

     In April 2021, Carnes entered a guilty plea before Judge Gorton to one count of Conspiracy to Commit Theft by Programs Receiving Federal Funds; and one count of Embezzlement From an Agency Receiving Federal Funds.

     According to documents filed with the court, between 2016 and February 2019, Carnes submitted false and fraudulent overtime slips for overtime hours he did not work for two different overtime shifts at the Boston Police Department’s evidence warehouse.

     The first, called “purged” overtime, which was a 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. weekday shift intended to dispose of old, unneeded evidence. The second shift called a “kiosk” overtime, involved driving to each police district in Boston one Saturday a month to collect old prescription drugs to be burned.

     For the purge shift, Carnes claimed to have worked from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m., but he routinely left at 6:oo p.m. or before. For the kiosk shift, Carnes submitted overtime slips claiming to have worked eight-and-one-half hours when he actually only worked three to four hours for those shifts.

     From 2016 through 2019, the Boston Police Department received annual benefits from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Justice in excess of $10,000, which were funded pursuant to multiple federal grants. 

     The Federal Bureau of Investigations, Boston Division, and Russell W. Cunningham, Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Justice of the Inspector General Mid-Atlantic Region, conducted the investigation.