Joseph Nee, a former officer with the Boston Police Department, has been sentenced to two years' probation for his involvement in an overtime fraud scheme at the department's evidence warehouse. This follows Nee's guilty plea to charges of conspiracy and embezzlement last year, as announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.
In addition to probation, Nee has been ordered to pay a fine of $2,000 and make restitution in the amount of $12,636 for overtime payments he fraudulently claimed between January 2015 and August 2017. During this period, Nee and others submitted falsified overtime slips for shifts they did not fully work, including a weekday "purge" shift intended for disposing of unneeded evidence from 4 to 8 p.m., and a monthly "kiosk" shift for collecting prescription drugs for disposal. They would leave these shifts early but still claimed full pay.
According to details shared by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Nee is not alone in this scheme; he is one of 15 Boston Police officers charged in relation to the fraud, where 10 have been convicted by guilty plea or jury verdict and four were acquitted as of April 2023, while one officer passed away before a resolution of their case could be reached.
Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy, along with Russel W. Cunningham, the Special Agent in Charge of the DOJ Office of the Inspector General, and Jodi Cohen of the FBI's Boston Division, jointly made today's announcement. This marks another step in addressing the misconduct that has tarnished the reputation of the Boston Police Department's evidence warehouse over several years.
It was Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark Grady and Kunal Pasricha of the Criminal Division who took on the prosecution of this case, contributing to the wider effort to root out corruption within the police institution, an initiative likely to continue as the legal processes against involved officers still unfold.
