Friday, January 27, 2012

MPD Organized Crime Unit Didn’t Follow Spending Guidelines

Charlotte and the city at the far western end of the Tennessee may have more in common than the love of barbecue and television crime reality show "The First 48".

Several Memphis Police Department officers who owned a private business to teach law enforcement techniques received improper overtime payments and other reimbursements for teaching those courses.

The audit of the department's Organized Crime Unit also determined that former police director Larry Godwin appeared to influence the career progress of a son assigned to the unit.

The draft audit said MPD officers who served as instructors with a company called Investigative Techniques Unlimited wrongfully got $183,555 in overtime pay from the department's drug fund for teaching the courses.

Over the past several years the Memphis Police Department used crime forfeiture money in a free and easy manner, spending the funds in any way the former police director saw fit, including payments to his son and using forefiture funds to pay for department operational expenses which is not approved.

According to the Memphis Daily News:

An audit of the Memphis Police Department’s Organized Crime Unit (OCU) says the unit, which includes undercover drug investigations and other covert operations, “needs significant improvement” in obeying guidelines for the use of money in the OCU drug fund.

The completed internal audit by city’s audit team released Thursday, Jan. 26, also concludes eight OCU employees should not have been allowed to work as training instructors for Investigative Techniques Unlimited because of a conflict of interest.

ITU is a company founded by former OCU officer Paul Sherman, who coordinated OCU’s undercover program. ITU had a contract to provide instructors for classes given by the Regional Counterdrug Training Academy, which is where OCU officers receive specialized training. RCTA paid ITU for the instructors who taught officers from police agencies including but not limited to the MPD.

Sherman also recommended which Memphis police officers received the RCTA training while he was still with the department, according to the report.

The report specifically concludes $183,555 in overtime paid to OCU officers from the drug fund as they worked as instructors at a training facility was not a “drug enforcement expense.”

It is the largest single amount of a total $245,710 questioned in the audit findings.

More details from the Memphis Daily News here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just what RoMo is doing with CMPD drug money. And no one even asked about why his son-in-law was given a seized ZX300 before he even joined the deparment to drive.

If you think Memphis is bad just wait til they get a load of Rodney Monroe.

Anonymous said...

Or why his daughter's baby daddy, they are not married, are they?, was given a day shift job in Providence right out of the Academy, AND has now been chosen for "special assignment" to work for Crazy Harold and the DNC.

What rodney has done at cmpd will make Memphis look like a bunch of schoolgirls.

ASSET FORFITURE????? NO ONE knows where all that money has gone, they just KNOW it was not used per guidelines, so I am told by reliable sources...there is NO accounting for the many illegal ways it has been used. I was even told at one time it was used to fund the Crimestoppers tip fund?!!! WTF?

At least Memphis had the balls and the integrity to actually care and investigate the corruption. In that they are WAY ahead of Charlotte.

And unrelated to this, I heard that Medlock is having so many "nutties" that peope just avoid having any contact with him unless absolutely necessary. Also heard he has someone else in his sights to get rid of, like he did with Pless, because they have REALLY pissed him off. What a vindictive old fart he is. Talk about abuse of power!!!! People will be so gald to see him go????

Maybe he and Rodney can both go work for that Company that installed the useless computer systems in the police cars,???? You know, harold's little pet boondoggle project???!

Corruption???? Charlotte and rodney and his gang have paved the way!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Once they start investigating, and I have heard they already are, rodney and his accomplices at cmpd, what has been going on will rock Charlotte to the core.

What is so hard to believe is how rodney, harold, graue, Zinkann, and others on Executive Staff and Command Staff have such huge reality distorting egos that they think they can get away with all the underhanded dirty dealings indefinitely. And the longer they get away with these things, the more emboldened it seems they become.

I guess if you get away with manufacturing the truth over and over, you feel you are teflon.

From what I hear, more and more people of integrity are standing up to these paper tigers, realizing they are bullies.
And these people are willing to finally back them down, call their collective bluffs and do what needs to be done to expose them and bring some kind of integrity back to cmpd and make a policy of NO TOLERANCE for manipulating numbers, covering things up, lying, vindictive behavior, reverse discrimination, favoritism, intimidation, bullying behaviors.

Blow the whistle people, you have safety in numbers!!

Anonymous said...

Yes. Safety in numbers. Blow the whistle. Turn the papers on the paper tigers. It's already started.

Lots of people are going to be charged on papers that didn't make it into the shredders.

Those people who were supposed to be checks and balances and didn't do their jobs will be going down on conspiracy and failure to supervise, at least