Twenty-six New Orleans Police officers are suspended from off-duty security work while the department investigates allegations the officers were using the detail work to pad their paychecks.
As The Times-Picayune | The Advocate reports, the officers are accused of defrauding payroll by receiving pay for security work they didn’t appear to actually work.
According to the news outlet, NOPD Deputy Superintendent Otha Sandifer confirmed the suspensions in an internal email reported by a WVUE investigative report.
The report shows an NOPD Professional Standards and Accountability Bureau audit found "several discrepancies” in the officers’ timesheets. The Office of Independent Police Monitor and Public Integrity Bureau are investigating the allegations.
“We take these allegations very seriously,” NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said. “When matters such as this have been brought to our attention in the past, we have acted quickly and decisively and that will be the case again. This behavior will not be tolerated.”
President of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, Rafael Goyeneche explained to WWL’s Tommy Tucker that the NOPD does not oversee officers’ off-duty work. That is handled by a separate city department called the Office of Secondary Employment.
“But, what we are now seeing is… some officers may have taken advantage of the fact that this is a disconnected system, and used it to personally enrich themselves and charged someone while they were working a detail… and also maybe working for the city. So, we need to see how this investigation works out,” said Goyeneche.
