JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — More current and former JSO officers are under arrest for falsifying overtime.
JSO announced the arrest of police sergeant Michael Rourke, officer Christopher Sosa and former officer Dylan Bostick Thursday.
The current and former officers are each facing felony charges for grand theft, organized fraud and official misconduct.
The current and former officers, all of whom worked within JSO’s traffic enforcement unit, are accused of falsifying a combined 440+ hours of overtime since December of last year.
“They weren’t doing what was supposed to be done and there was a breakdown. There won’t be a breakdown in the future,” Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters said.
According to Sheriff Waters, the three racked up a total of more than $33,000 in fraudulent overtime pay over a three-month span.
When combined with the arrest of another JSO traffic officer in February, who was accused of falsifying overtime, taxpayers have allegedly been defrauded of nearly $50,000.
“I guess they had done it a couple of times and they figured out they could continue to get away with it, but eventually, when you start doing dirt, you do wrong things, you’re going to get caught,” Waters said.
Because some of the money for the traffic enforcement overtime pay comes through FDOT grants, JSO said it will have to repay the state.
The exact FDOT share of the funds was not immediately clear.
Waters said the supervisor in charge of signing off on the four officers’ overtime, Sergeant C. Plank, decided to leave the agency, but noted he was never formally the subject of any criminal or administrative investigations.
Sheriff Waters said he believes three arrests will likely be the last, and the agency is already making changes to prevent this type of fraud from happening again.
“Now, when they go and work these types of jobs, they’re gonna have to report to an on-duty supervisor. The on-duty supervisor is gonna have to lay eyes on them and that is going into policy as we speak,” Waters said.
JSO also indicated it will seek to recoup lost taxpayer funds from the four accused officers through the criminal justice process.
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