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Six former California Highway Patrol officers face criminal charges for participating in an overtime fraud scheme, Atty. General Rob Bonta’s office announced Thursday.
Giovanni Bembi, Connie Marie Guzman, William Preciado, Edmund Zorrilla, Luis Manuel Mendoza and William Matthew Fountain have been charged with 97 counts of fraud and one count of robbery, according to a criminal complaint filed in LA County Superior Court. The officers, who were all sergeants assigned to the CHP station in East Lost Angeles, are accused of having received more than $ 23,000 in overtime for the hours they did not work.
“Trust is a fundamental building block for effective law enforcement,” Bonta said in a statement. “Californians should be able to count on CHP officers to keep our roads and highways safe, and when officers themselves do not follow the law, it erodes the trust of our communities. Bonta did not explain why these six people were targeted by criminal charges among the many officers who were found to be complicit in the scam.
The charges follow an internal investigation launched in 2018 by CHP officials after suspecting dozens of officers were inflating overtime claims on their timesheets. The investigation uncovered hundreds of thousands of dollars in bogus overtime collected by compensation officers since 2016. The sergeants responsible for supervising officers and signing their overtime claims had knowingly approved the illegitimate hours, revealed the ‘investigation.
Bonta’s office said its investigation was still ongoing, leaving open the possibility that others could be charged. The six former officers indicted this week could not be reached for comment. It is not known if they were fired from the CHP or if they resigned.
The reported overtime came from postings to protect Caltrans workers and California Department of Transportation road crews.
In a February 2019 statement, former CHP chief Mark Garrett said he was “extremely disheartened by the actions” of the officers.
“The CHP takes any misconduct by its employees seriously and does not condone any behavior that violates the law or department policy,” said Garrett.
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