WORCESTER — Two former State troopers were convicted by a federal jury on Monday on charges of conspiracy, federal programs fraud and wire fraud in connection with an overtime scheme dating back to 2015.
Former State Police Lt. Daniel Griffin, 60 of Belmont, and former State Police Sgt. William Robertson, 61, of Westborough, were convicted at Worcester District Court on one count of conspiracy, one count of theft concerning a federal program and four counts of wire fraud
On Nov. 27, just prior to the trial, Griffin pleaded guilty to four additional counts of wire fraud and 11 counts of filing false tax returns.
U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman scheduled sentencing for March 20, 2024. The defendants were indicted by a federal grand jury in December 2020.
From 2015 through 2018, Griffin and Robertson, along with other troopers in their section at the Framingham State Police headquarters, conspired to steal thousands of dollars in federally funded overtime by regularly arriving late to, and leaving early from, overtime shifts funded by grants intended to improve traffic safety. During the course of the conspiracy, Griffin made and approved false entries on forms and other documentation to conceal and perpetuate the fraud.
When the MSP overtime misconduct came to light in 2017 and 2018, Griffin, Robertson and their co-conspirators took steps to avoid detection by shredding and burning records and forms. After an internal inquiry regarding missing forms, Griffin submitted a memo to his superiors that was designed to mislead them by claiming that missing forms were “inadvertently discarded or misplaced” during office moves.
Additionally, Griffin spent significant time running his security business, Knight Protection Services, during hours that he was collecting regular MSP pay and overtime pay.
From 2012 to 2019, Griffin collected almost $2 million in KnightPro revenue. Of that total, Griffin hid over $700,000 in revenue from the IRS and used hundreds of thousands of dollars in KnightPro income to fund personal expenses, such as golf club expenses, car payments, private school tuition and expenses related to his second home on Cape Cod.
Prior to Monday’s jury conviction, Griffin pleaded guilty on Nov. 27 to defrauding a private school attended by two of his children from at least 2016 to 2019 by concealing his KnightPro income and filing materially-misleading financial aid applications, which understated his income and assets by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Despite Griffin’s lucrative State Police salary and KnightPro business, Griffin obtained over $175,000 in financial aid from the private school over the course of several years.
The charge of wire fraud provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The charge of federal program fraud provides for a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The charge of conspiracy provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The charge of filing false tax returns provides for a sentence of up to three years in prison, one year of supervised release and a fine of $100,000.
Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.
The announcement was made in Boston on Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts; Special Agent in Charge Christopher A. Scharf, U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Office of Inspector General, Northeast Region; FBI Special Agent in Charge Jodi Cohen, Boston Division; and Special Agent in Charge Harry Chavis, Jr., IRS Criminal Investigations, Boston.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Dustin Chao and Adam Deitch of the Public Corruption Unit are prosecuting the case.
-Courtesy U.S. Attorney’s office, District of Massachusetts