Six MPD officers and a civilian charged with stealing $441,000 in overtime they never worked

Why this hits home right now

D.C. taxpayers already knew the city's public-safety overtime bill was out of control. The D.C. auditor documented that last year. What they did not know - until Tuesday afternoon - was that some of the people cashing those checks were not working the shifts at all.

A judge signed arrest warrants for six current and former D.C. police employees Tuesday after authorities accused them of collecting nearly half a million dollars combined for overtime they did not work. The charges land on a department already under intense scrutiny over its finances, its data, and its relationship with the communities it polices in Northeast and Southeast.

Those charged include a former sergeant, a former senior officer and a former lieutenant, as well as two current officers and one civilian employee, all of whom were assigned to the city's 5th District. That district covers large swaths of Northeast Washington, from Trinidad to Michigan Park.

The numbers, person by person

This was not a vague pattern. Prosecutors put specific dollar figures to each name.

Former Sgt. Frantz Fulcher fraudulently received nearly $175,000, prosecutors allege. That is nearly 40 percent of the total scheme on its own. Officer Dorrie Smith-Cleere allegedly received more than $87,000, and Officer Thomas Krmenec allegedly received more than $89,000. Former Senior Officer Bernadette Richardson improperly collected more than $43,000. Former Lt. Peter Sheldon and civilian employee Johnnie Dyer were improperly paid $18,000 and $27,000, respectively, according to prosecutors.

Add it up: six current and former D.C. police employees are facing fraud charges after prosecutors say they collectively received more than $441,000 in overtime pay that they did not earn.

The audacity of some of the conduct stands out. In some cases, they claimed overtime while traveling, both domestically and abroad, prosecutors said. Billing for shifts you did not work is one thing. Billing for shifts while you were on a plane somewhere else is another.

The charges themselves

The employees will be charged with fraud, theft and forgery, according to news releases from the D.C. attorney general's office and the U.S. attorney's office for D.C. They will also be charged with uttering, which means presenting a document one knows is fake or forged. The forgery and uttering counts suggest these were not simple timekeeping oversights - they required the creation of false paperwork.

On August 18, 2026, a judge of the Superior Court for the District of Columbia signed arrest warrants for current and former MPD members Peter Sheldon, Frantz Fulcher, Thomas Krmenec and the others named in the case.

Attorney General Brian Schwalb went straight at the institutional dimension. "These six officers abused their positions of power, exploiting the District and the residents they took an oath to serve and protect. No one is above the law, especially those trusted with enforcing it," Schwalb said in a statement.

The OAG release is titled: "Attorney General Schwalb Announces Public Corruption Charges Against 6 MPD Members for Widespread Overtime Fraud Scheme." The word "widespread" is doing real work there - this was prosecuted as a systemic problem inside one district, not a single rogue actor.

The context MPD cannot escape

The arrests come as D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department is struggling to curb soaring overtime costs and grappling with a 50-year staffing low. Those two facts are connected. When a department is short on officers, overtime goes up. When overtime goes up with weak controls, fraud becomes easier to conceal inside sheer volume.

The city paid nearly $220 million in public-safety overtime last year, a figure the D.C. auditor previously flagged as partly avoidable. This case makes the auditor's warnings look understated. The question now is not just whether MPD overspent on overtime - it's how many of those hours were real.

The 5th District is one of MPD's eight patrol districts. That the scheme allegedly ran there, among multiple officers of varying ranks and a civilian staffer, suggests either catastrophic supervisory failure or deliberate coordination. The charges do not resolve which. That is what the courts are for.

The case is a joint prosecution between the D.C. attorney general's office and the U.S. attorney's office for D.C. - the same partnership that has handled prior MPD time-and-attendance fraud cases. The OAG details a prosecutor to the U.S. attorney's office specifically to handle local public corruption matters. This institutional plumbing matters: it means the city is not relying solely on federal prosecutors to police its own employees, and it means Schwalb's office has skin in every conviction or acquittal.

What this means for the incoming administration

Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic primary in June and is the heavy favorite to become mayor in November. She inherits not just MPD's staffing hole but its internal accountability problem. As a Ward 4 councilmember, she voted for budgets that funded the overtime system now under scrutiny. Come January, she owns it.

The D.C. Council has not yet responded publicly to Tuesday's charges. Council Chair Phil Mendelson's office did not immediately return a request for comment. The timing - mid-August recess - means official reaction may lag the news cycle.

MPD's Internal Affairs Division is the investigative arm that typically surfaces these cases before prosecutors take over. What is not yet public is how long this particular investigation ran, who first raised the alarm inside the 5th District, and whether any supervisors above the rank of sergeant face scrutiny.

The defendants have not yet entered pleas. The police employees could not immediately be reached for comment. Every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

What D.C. Residents Should Watch

• Arraignment dates for all six defendants in D.C. Superior Court - those proceedings will be public and will reveal whether any of them intend to cooperate with prosecutors.
• MPD's internal response: Has Chief Pamela Smith suspended the two current officers still on the force? The department had not confirmed their status as of Tuesday evening.
• Scope of the investigation: Prosecutors described this as a "widespread" scheme inside the 5th District. Watch for any signal that the probe extends to other districts or other time periods.
• The D.C. Council's oversight hearing calendar: The Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, chaired by Brooke Pinto, has jurisdiction over MPD. Whether she schedules a hearing on overtime controls when the Council returns from recess is a real test of institutional seriousness.
• The OAG's public corruption section chief: The chief of Schwalb's public corruption section has been detailed to the U.S. attorney's office - that partnership structure is what made this prosecution possible. A change in administration could affect whether that detail continues.

Sgt. Frantz Fulcher's alleged $175,000 take works out to roughly four years of a starting D.C. teacher's salary.

Sources: The Washington Post (Aug. 18, 2026); NOTUS (Aug. 18, 2026); D.C. Office of the Attorney General; U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia; FOX 5 DC (Aug. 18, 2026).