Former Boston Police captain gets a year in federal prison for role in evidence-warehouse overtime fraud

A federal judge today sentenced a retired Boston Police captain to one year in prison and two years of probation and ordered him to pay $154,249.20 in restitution for participating and overseeing an overtime fraud scheme at the Hyde Park evidence warehouse for several years, the US Attorney's office reports.

A federal jury in Boston convicted Richard Evans, 65, of Hanover, in March on charges of conspiracy to commit theft concerning programs receiving federal funds, theft concerning programs receiving federal finds, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud for what he and other officers did while he was in command of the facility on Hyde Park Avenue.

A number of other officers have pleaded guilty or been convicted since the feds first announced their investigation in 2019, including the former president of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association. Most have received probation or home confinement; in August, one officer was sentenced to six months behind bars. Last year, a jury acquitted four officers.

In a sentencing memorandum, Assistant US Attorney Kunal Pasricha urged US District Court Judge Richard Stearns to put Evans in prison for at least three years.

The evidence at trial made clear that this scheme could not have succeeded without the commanding officer being part of the scheme, and Evans used his position as the supervisor of the [evidence unit] to play a critical role in this scheme. Not only did he personally benefit from this theft and fraud, he personally signed off on thousands of pay slips over years where he knew officers were seeking pay for hours they did not work. Every day of trial involved testimony from witnesses who shows different ways in which Evans abused his position to commit or get away with committing this theft and fraud. Lower ranking officers testified that they could not have gotten away with the scheme if Evans was not in on it.

Pasricha added:

In addition to himself getting paid for work he did not do, Evans helped approximately a dozen other police officers under his command commit years of fraud by fraudulently certifying their slips so that they could also get paid for work they did not do. This likely resulted in some non-monetary benefits to Evans as well, as it allowed him to completely shirk his command responsibility and avoid any of the interpersonal issuesThe government has always recognized the defendant's lengthy and distinguished career in the BPD, and the government has never portrayed the defendant as someone who was always corrupt or always looking to steal from the job. To the contrary, at trial, the government itself highlighted much of the defendant's experience and accomplishments. But the defendant's career must be viewed in context.

The defendant cannot simultaneously take credit for that lengthy career as a police officer while failing to acknowledge the most basic parts of his training and experience - knowing the difference between right and wrong; knowing he needed to fill out his time slips properly; knowing that he should not falsify police forms, and especially not thousands of times; knowing that police officers are public servants, not people entitled to steal from the public treasury. that may have arisen if he had tried to stop a large criminal conspiracy amongst his officers. Instead, Evans willingly joined the criminal conspiracy and led it for years, helping institutionalize it and then taking a leading role in misleading the Command Staff about the nature of the purge program [a program to get rid of old evidence in which much of the overtime abuse happened].

Evans's attorney, Kevin Reddington, argued that Stearns should sentence Evans to three years of probation or, at most, a period of home confinement followed by probation.

He argued the overtime abuse began under Evans's predecessor at the evidence unit, that there was no evidence that Evans was some sort of puppet master, no proof of texts or e-mails about the fraud or even proof that he much fraternized with the officers who worked at the unit who were also charged.

Reddington opposed a bid by Pasricha add points to the algorithm the judge could use to determine a sentence based on the premise that Evans, as a supervisor, actively oversaw the conspiracy, when there was no evidence he did.

His family is one of strong, blue collar, patriotic individuals. Mr. Evans, as the Court is aware, did not engage in military service but instead, upon graduation for college, entered into the police department where he served with distinction for over 42 years. During that 42 year period he did not have any disciplinary issues and ultimately retired. He still, as noted, had 266 sick hours on the books that he never collected.