Boston cop gets prison time for her role in overtime scandal at Hyde Park warehouse

A federal judge this week sentenced former Boston Police officer to six months in prison for her role in the overtime scandal at the BPD evidence warehouse in Hyde Park.

Diana Lopez, 62, of Milton, however, has already started an appeal of the sentence. Other officers charged in the scandal who have pleaded or been found guilty have been sentenced to probation, with a couple ordered to start that with a few months of home confinement.

Lopez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit theft concerning programs receiving federal funds and one count of embezzlement from an agency receiving federal funds in June, 2021.

In addition to the prison time, US District Court Judge District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton sentence Lopez to two years of probation and ordered her to pay $36,028 in restitution and a $5,000 fine.

Unlike other BPD officers sentenced for their involvement in the fraudulent overtime scheme, prosecutors sought prison time for Lopez because she was involved longer than others and she guided new officers at the warehouse into the fraud, so she should share the blame for the total $386,766 officers earned in bogus overtime over a four-year period.

Also, assistant US Attorney Mark Grady wrote, in urging an 18-month sentence, Lopez testified against the government at the trial of another officer charged with fraud even after agreeing to testify for prosecutors - which she did do in other Hyde Park cases. And, he wrote in a sentencing memo, she lied on the stand when she alleged prosecutors threatened to take away her children if she did not agree to testify for the government.

Grady wrote Perez must also be punished to send a message to other cops that the government has had quite enough with them abusing their payrolls:

The issue of payroll abuse by law enforcement has been a recurring one in this Court with many officers of the State Police, Boston Police, and Quincy Police having been convicted of various forms of payroll abuse. It has not been enough to simply bring such conduct to light. Prior convictions alone have not deterred (or not sufficiently deterred) such conduct. Indeed, the conduct in this matter continued, despite a 2018 high-profile prosecution of members of the State Police Turnpike Unit for similar overtime fraud. This Court, itself, sentenced one of those state troopers. This history of similar prosecutions highlights the need for this sentence to serve as a general deterrent. Officers cannot believe themselves immune from consequences for stealing and violating the public trust.

In their sentencing recommendation, Perez's attorneys, James Dilday and Anthony Ellison, called for probation only. They argued she was not the leader of the overtime-fraud ring but merely following orders in a practice that was "plainly widespread and accepted by the Boston Police Department." And it would be unfair to send her to prison when other convicted officers got probation.

One must remember that Ms. Lopez was a soldier taking orders from her superior officers to leave early once her work was done. ... Ms. Lopez was never in a position to challenge the directives of her superior officers. Had she balked, she would have been isolated by her fellow officers and not considered to be a team player. She did as she was told. And now suffers the consequences for it. To put it simply, she was but a "cog" in the wheel of corruption.