BOSTON (AP) — Internal affairs investigators with the Massachusetts State Police saw warning signs of the overtime pay scandal currently rocking the department as early as 2014, yet the agency failed to act, according to a new report.
The Boston Globe reports that investigators in 2014 were looking for evidence that two troopers were secretly escorting funeral processions and taking cash under the table. But during that probe, they found that troopers had routinely filed for more than 30 hours a week in overtime and paid details they either didn’t work or didn’t complete.
Those details never made it into the investigators’ final report.
A state police audit earlier this year found that more than 20 troopers may have been paid overtime for shifts they did not work. Several are facing criminal charges.