A former Massachusetts State Police Sergeant is now facing three years behind bars for defrauding the government through an overtime theft scheme. According to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's Office, William W. Robertson, 62, from Westborough, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman. After serving his time in prison, he will have a supervised release period of three years. Robertson was also ordered to make restitution of $142,774 and to forfeit $32,180.
The sentencing came on the heels of a previous conviction in December 2023, where Robertson was found guilty of one count of conspiracy, one count of theft concerning a federal program, and four counts of wire fraud. On Friday, April 26, 2024 another former trooper involved, MSP Lieutenant Daniel Griffin, received a heftier sentence of five years in prison following his own conviction on similar charges. Additionally, he was ordered to pay a substantial fine and restitution, totaling over half a million dollars.
The elaborate theft, spanning from 2015 through 2018, involved Griffin, Robertson, and other troopers assigned to the Traffic Programs Section at the State Police Headquarters in Framingham. They conspired to embezzle thousands from federally funded overtime initiatives meant to enhance traffic safety. It was revealed that they regularly came late to and departed early from these overtime shifts.
As the scandal came to light between 2017 and 2018, the troopers attempted to cover their tracks by destroying evidence. Records and forms were shredded and burnt to evade detection. Griffin went as far as authoring a misleading memo after an internal inquiry, claiming that missing forms had been 'inadvertently discarded or misplaced' during office relocations, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The case was brought to light by a combined effort from the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Boston Division, and the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigations unit in Boston. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dustin Chao, Chief of the Public Corruption Unit and Assistant United States Attorney Adam Deitch of the Public Corruption Unit were credited for prosecuting the case.
