A Connecticut police chief has been indicted on a felony for allegedly hiding the theft of public funds by using online gambling.
The former Police Chief who, after an unexpected resignation earlier this year, voluntarily surrendered to the state authorities, is now facing multiple first-degree theft charges for allegedly stealing over $80,000 from confidential police operating accounts. The case of the police chief accused of embezzlement reveals that unchecked power can lead to a lavish misuse of public funds. Thus, it shows the dangerous combination of corruption with easy access to legalized online sports betting nowadays.
According to the documents of the arrest, the gambling of the former chief was of such a large scale that in the last year before his surprise resignation he made bets totaling more than four million dollars through a number of major legal online sportsbooks, which led to his personal losses exceeding two hundred thousand dollars.
Experts in the field of addiction psychology say that through the convenience of mobile betting apps, it is now very easy for anyone to get addicted to gambling.
One time, the ex-chief had struggled with, and also managed to beat, alcoholism as per the court records, however, he ended up getting a serious gambling addiction.
For the people who have had issues with substances previously, the mobile betting being available all the time can create such a strong and persistent craving that it is really hard to control.
Specialists in addiction psychology indicate that mobile betting apps have made it extremely easy for people to become addicted to gambling. At one time, the former chief had issues with and was able to overcome alcoholism according to the court records, but he later developed a severe gambling addiction. For those who have had problems with substances in the past, the continual availability of mobile betting can generate a very strong and haunting desire that is very difficult to suppress.
Fraud Scheme and Aftermath
To fund his gambling daily addiction without stopping, the ex-chief is accused of misusing his sole authority over the department’s finances. Investigators reveal that he took advantage of two vulnerabilities to divert the stolen cash. One of them was the Confidential Informant Fund employed by the narcotics unit to pay street-level informants with cash, a cash-heavy account that rarely has a paper trail due to the discretion that informant payments generally require.
The Youth Activity League is a community program that strives to create positive relations between local children and police officers. A lack of internal controls allowed the fraud to go undetected for several months. The ex-chief had absolute, unchecked authority over the police department’s cash records. He would not only sign off on sizable monthly cash withdrawals but also take the money, be the only person to look at the logs of the transactions, and therefore had no one who could hold him accountable.
The scheme started to unravel when the ex-chief’s financial problems became common knowledge. After he began giving informal IOUs as explanations for the missing funds, the officers in the squad got suspicious. Besides that, he even asked junior lieutenants for personal loans to cover his expenses.
After the warning signs of the case were handed over to the higher authorities, the assistant deputies held a confidential meeting with their boss. When the evidence was directly thrown at the chief, he was out of control. He admitted that he had been gambling excessively and requested the deputies to cover up his errors, overlook his behavior, secretly make up for the missing money, alter official documents, and simply let him retire quietly. The deputies refused to comply. They immediately changed the locks on his office, revoked his access, and reported the financial misappropriation to the city authorities. The chief did not just submit his retirement letter, but also left the office immediately.
Perhaps, the community is now experiencing the fallout of the situation. The ex-chief is currently being held in jail after a judge set bail at $150,000. If the ex-chief is found guilty of felony at trial, state law provides for the complete forfeiture of his municipal pension.
At the same time, the city has initiated the upgrade of its financial internal controls in the wake of the scandal. The whistleblower program is under scrutiny and recently introduced financial controls will be utilized to ensure more frequent monitoring.
Furthermore, these measures are also intended to aver any single person, whoever he or she may be, from having unchallenged access to the city funds.
