Four Boston Police officers who were accused by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of overtime fraud have been acquitted of all charges.
A jury on Thursday found the four cops — Lt. Timothy Torigian, Sgt. Robert Twitchell, Officer Henry Doherty, and Officer Kendra Conway — not guilty of three federal charges.
In early February, the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged the four officers in a superseding indictment in connection with the ongoing investigation of OT fraud at the Boston Police Department’s evidence warehouse.
The officers — 57-year-old Torigian of Walpole, 61-year-old Twitchell (retired) of Norton, 64-year-old Doherty (retired) of Dorchester, and 52-year-old Conway of Boston — were facing charges of conspiracy to commit theft concerning programs receiving federal funds, embezzlement from an agency receiving federal funds, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The four officers were found not guilty of all three charges on Thursday.
“We have reached a verdict,” reads a handwritten jury letter from the federal court proceeding.
The four acquitted cops had been assigned to BPD’s Evidence Control Unit, where they were responsible for storing, cataloging and retrieving evidence at the warehouse. They were eligible to earn overtime pay of 1.5 times their regular hourly pay rate for OT assignments.
The feds had accused the cops of routinely departing OT shifts two or more hours early but submitting false and fraudulent OT slips, claiming to have worked the entirety of each shift.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the four police officers had collectively embezzled more than $200,000 in overtime pay between May 2016 and February 2019.
Several Boston cops have pleaded guilty and were sentenced in connection to the overtime fraud scheme. The witness list for Thursday’s case involving these four acquitted cops included Thomas Nee, a former Boston police officer who in 2021 pleaded guilty in connection with OT fraud at the evidence warehouse.
