Former Boston police officer gets prison time in OT scandal

A former Boston police officer who conspired with other officers in a long-running overtime fraud scheme has been ordered to pay back the roughly $36,000 she embezzled, acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy’s office announced Tuesday.

In addition to restitution, 62-year-old Diana Lopez can expect to spend six months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release. The Milton woman was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine after pleading 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. 

“My client and I are very disappointed in the court’s decision,” Lopez’s defense attorney Anthony Ellison said in a statement regarding Tuesday’s sentencing. “We are in the process of discussing next steps.”

Prosecutors accused Lopez of submitting false and fraudulent overtime slips for hours she did not work at the Boston Police Department’s evidence warehouse. Between January 2015 and February 2019, Lopez claimed she was working “purge” overtime, a 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. weekday shift meant to help Boston police organize and dispose of old evidence it no longer needed. 

However, Lopez often left midway through those shifts, Levy’s office said in a press release. She ultimately collected about $36,028 for overtime hours she did not work.

A Boston police officer since 1985, Lopez is among more than a dozen Boston officers who have been charged in connection with overtime fraud at the evidence warehouse, according to the press release. She is the eighth officer to be sentenced. 

In court documents, prosecutors said Lopez and other officers assigned to the warehouse submitted thousands of false and fraudulent overtime slips and collected about $386,766 in undue overtime pay over a four-year span. 

Lopez took a plea deal with federal prosecutors and cooperated with authorities’ investigation of misconduct at the warehouse, though she subsequently testified against the federal government in a related case, court documents show. According to prosecutors, Lopez testified that she and other officers routinely left their overtime shifts early and lied about it, also explaining that she would often complete her overtime work during her regular shift so she could leave earlier.

The prosecution’s sentencing memorandum alleged that Lopez participated in the overtime scheme longer than any of the other officers charged, even teaching new arrivals how the arrangement worked. 

Lopez’s lawyers, meanwhile, held up her decades of service to the Boston Police Department. In letters of support filed with the court, friends and former BPD colleagues praised Lopez’s dedication to her family and her work. 

“The conduct underlying the conviction in this case, which she deeply regrets, cannot and should not erase the laudable aspect of her long and honorable career of service,” the defense wrote in its sentencing memorandum. 

Lopez served as a primary caretaker to her mother and brother for years, also raising two children following a divorce, according to the court document. Defense attorneys described Lopez’s role in the overtime scheme as “truly aberrant in the context of an otherwise exemplary life and law enforcement career.”