The officer, an investigator in the Sanford PD’s Professional Standards unit, was charged with 79 counts of official misconduct, as well as organized fraud

SANFORD, Fla. — A 23-year veteran and former spokesperson for the Sanford Police Department was arrested Tuesday after being paid thousands of dollars for allegedly fake off-duty work shifts.

Ronny Neal, an investigator in SPD’s Professional Standards unit, was charged with 79 counts of official misconduct. That’s one for each alleged instance of fraudulently submitting timesheets containing off-duty work at Lofts at Eden apartments between October 2023 and July 2024

  • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    7 days ago

    This was about him moonlighting as private security. He ripped off the people at the Lofts at Eden apartments, not the taxpayers.

    Edit: actually, I’m only kinda half-right. It’s supposed to be the private entity on the hook for the cost, but apparently the money flows though the department anyway instead of the officer being directly employed by the private entity.

    Part of this guy’s fraud (and I guess, how he hoped not to get caught, but which backfired) was that he wasn’t actually charging the client.

    Typically, when Sanford officers are hired to provide security or perform other duties in their off-hours, the department pays the officers for that work and then seeks reimbursement from the hiring party.

    The investigation leading to Neal’s arrest began after SPD’s finance department in July 2024 discovered a number of accounts where vendors appeared not to have reimbursed the department. Neal, who also served as off-duty detail coordinator, was asked to turn over invoices from those accounts, but many — in particular those from Lofts at Eden paying Neal for off-duty work — remained unresolved by the time the police administration was made aware of the issue in August of this year.