SAVANNAH, GEORGIA
A former ATF Task Force officer claimed he worked about 800 hours of overtime resulting in more than $19,500 in pay, officials said.
Officer Daryle McCormick didn’t work those hours and last week, he plead guilty to theft, officials said.
“McCormick’s lies about the overtime he worked cost the taxpayers almost $20,000,” said U.S. Attorney John Horn. “In committing this crime, McCormick violated both the law and the public’s trust.”
McCormick, 47, of Pooler, Georgia, plead guilty to theft of government money.
McCormick, 19-year veteran cop, was terminated from the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department in May, officials said.
“Today’s guilty plea demonstrates that federally deputized task force officers will be held to the same standards as other federal law enforcement officers,” said Special Agent in Charge Robert Bourbon of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General’s Miami Field Office.
The evidence presented in court indicated the following:
- From November 25, 1996, to May 7, 2015, Daryle McCormick served as a police officer with Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department headquartered in Savannah, Georgia.
- McCormick became a federally‑deputized Task Force Officer with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives or ATF.
- McCormick served as an ATF Task Force Officer from approximately September 6, 2005, to June 17, 2014.
- As an ATF Task Force Officer, McCormick was eligible to receive overtime pay for working more than eight hours per day.
- To be paid, McCormick was required to submit an overtime pay request to the ATF, listing the dates worked, the number of hours worked, and the general subject matter of the work.
- When submitting requests to be paid for overtime hours purportedly worked, McCormick made the following certification: “I certify that the above time was duly earned. I understand that my misstatement concerning the aforementioned time may be cause for dismissal.”
- Ultimately, when approved, payments for McCormick’s fraudulently claimed overtime came from the U.S. Department of Justice.
- From October 2010 to September 2013, McCormick engaged in a scheme to unlawfully commit overtime fraud by repeatedly submitting overtime payment requests to the ATF for hours that he never worked.
- For example, (1) McCormick claimed to work overtime on days when he had worked a full day with the ATF and had also worked up to an additional four hours at a second job for a local church; (2) McCormick claimed to have worked overtime conducting surveillance or undercover operations, even though no ATF operations occurred on those dates; and (3) McCormick claimed to have worked overtime conducting surveillance or undercover operations; however, McCormick never drafted reports summarizing the alleged ATF operations.
- From approximately Oct. 18, 2010, to Sept. 28, 2013, McCormick falsely claimed to have worked almost 800 hours in overtime when in fact, he had not worked those overtime hours.
The FBI conducted the investigation.