Former State Police Sergeant Gets 3 Years in Prison for Role in Overtime Scam

Local News

William Robertson, 62, of Westborough, will also pay $142,774 in restitution and forfeit $32,180.

The second state worker involved in a years-long overtime fraud ring stealing tens of thousands of dollars will spend three years in federal prison, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.

William W. Robertson, 62, of Westborough, is a former sergeant with the Massachusetts State Police. A federal judge sentenced him Tuesday to three years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Robertson will also pay $142,774 in restitution and forfeit $32,180, prosecutors said.

Robertson was convicted in December of one count of conspiracy, one count of theft involving a federal program and four counts of wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Former Lt. Daniel Griffin, Robertson’s co-conspirator, was sentenced Friday to five years in federal prison and will have to pay nearly half a million dollars. Along with Griffin, Robertson and other troopers plotted to steal thousands of dollars in overtime between 2015 and 2018, federal prosecutors said.

The troopers involved worked in the traffic programs section at State Police headquarters in Framingham. They coordinated to arrive late and leave their posts early, prosecutors said, misappropriating funds from grants intended to improve highway safety.

During some shifts, troopers were supposed to monitor sobriety checkpoints to arrest drivers potentially under the influence.

The group of soldiers also burned and shredded files to avoid detection, the U.S. attorney said. Griffin, Robertson’s superior officer, misled his superiors and claimed the forms were inadvertently misplaced, according to prosecutors.

Robertson and Griffin were the only two officers to face federal charges related to the fraud scheme, officials announced in 2020.

Several Massachusetts police officers have been charged with overtime fraud, including the former president of the Boston police union, nine Boston police officers and a Boston police captain.