Six DC Police Employees Charged in $441K Fake Overtime Scheme

Six current and former Metropolitan Police Department employees are facing felony charges after prosecutors say they bilked D.C. taxpayers out of more than $440,000 in fraudulent overtime pay, with false claims filed while some of the accused were out of town or even out of the country. Arrest warrants for Peter Sheldon, Frantz Fulcher, Thomas Krmenec, Bernadette Richardson, Dorrie Smith-Cleere, and Johnnie Dyer were signed Tuesday, all tied to their work in MPD's Fifth District administrative office.

According to WJLA, prosecutors said the six submitted false claims for overtime or regular tour duty hours they never worked, manipulated records, and forged supervisors' signatures on authorization forms. Investigators reportedly combed through bodycam footage, cell data, toll records, and emails to pin down which claimed hours were falsified. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb laid out the individual breakdown of the scheme in a statement, detailing how the $441,137 collected in 2024 was split among the six defendants, according to the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia.

Former Sergeant Accused of Claiming Over 1,800 Fraudulent Hours

Former Sgt. Frantz Fulcher is accused of taking the largest share by far, with $174,915.39 in unearned overtime pay tied to his name. Officer Thomas Krmenec was allegedly paid $89,478.00 in fraudulent overtime, followed by officer Dorrie Smith-Cleere at $87,397.65, former senior officer Bernadette Richardson at $43,351.68, civilian employee Johnnie Dyer at $27,721.59, and former Lt. Peter Sheldon at $18,272.72.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Fulcher submitted 2,734 overtime hours in 2024 alone and was paid over $250,000 for that work, but at least 1,861 of those hours — worth more than $174,000 — were completely fraudulent, according to WUSA9. Fulcher had served with MPD since 2006 and earned an annual salary of $119,964 before his departure, the station's report notes.

Fraud Methods Included Travel Abroad and Forged Signatures

The Department of Justice said the group's fraud methods included claiming overtime while physically traveling outside D.C. or out of the country, logging overtime during annual leave, forging supervisor signatures, and using their administrative positions to process and approve their own claims. Members of the group also allegedly claimed compensation while working secondary jobs, per prosecutors' account described in the same U.S. Department of Justice release. The irregularities were uncovered by MPD's Internal Affairs Division.

The six now face charges of first-degree fraud, first-degree theft, forgery, and uttering. Under D.C. Code, first-degree felony fraud and first-degree felony theft each carry a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison and financial fines for property values exceeding $1,000, according to information published by the law firm Bruckheim & Patel.

DC's Home Rule Act Forces Local-Federal Prosecution Partnership

Because the D.C. Home Rule Act limits local government jurisdiction over adult felony prosecutions, Schwalb explained that the District details local attorneys as Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys to prosecute public corruption cases through the U.S. Attorney's Office. It is the same legal arrangement used in a prior MPD time-and-attendance fraud case: in May 2023, former officer and D.C. Police Union Vice Chairman Medgar Webster Sr. pleaded guilty to first-degree felony fraud after stealing $33,845 from MPD by billing regular and overtime hours while simultaneously working unauthorized secondary security jobs, per the Attorney General's office.

One of the six defendants, Lt. Peter Sheldon, had already retired from MPD in March 2025 amid an ongoing internal affairs probe into Fifth District administrative time theft, according to NewsTalk New England. That retirement closed out a career that began in 1998, with Sheldon earning an annual salary of $147,961. The outlet also reported that Richardson, who was re-hired by MPD after retiring in 2020, earned $84,121 annually in her administrative role.

Overtime Spending Has Ballooned Amid Staffing Shortages

The case lands against a backdrop of ballooning overtime costs across D.C.'s public safety agencies. An Office of the DC Auditor report released in July found that D.C. public safety agencies spent nearly $220 million on overtime during fiscal year 2025, driven by systemic staffing shortages and heavy employee leave usage, according to the Office of the DC Auditor.

D.C. Chief Financial Officer records show MPD's actual overtime expenditures alone surged from $61.5 million in fiscal year 2023 to $95.7 million in fiscal year 2025, consistently blowing past annual budgeted overtime caps of around $24 million, WUSA9 reported separately. That spending surge has coincided with sworn staffing falling to 50-year lows of around 3,000 officers, leaving the department more reliant than ever on overtime to cover shifts — an environment prosecutors say created opportunities for the alleged scheme to go unnoticed inside the Fifth District office for as long as it did.