GROVELAND — A veteran police officer is in hot water for padding paperwork to show that he worked an extra hour on a private detail to get an extra $63 in his paycheck.
Officer Kevin Woodman admitted to an investigator that he added the hour, but defended the action by saying "others had done it" and that padding detail sheets is an "accepted" practice by police officers.
"Officer Woodman's assertion that the padding of detail hours is an acceptable practice is not a satisfactory defense for the misconduct in question, which violates the public trust and defiles the core values that police officers must stand for," wrote Alfred Donovan of APD Management Consultants, a company hired by the town to lead the internal investigation.
Police Chief Robert Kirmelewicz said Woodman was disciplined for being found responsible on two counts of conduct unbecoming an officer and two counts of falsifying records. The chief said the town's lawyer advised against releasing the details of Woodman's punishment.
Kirmelewicz declined to comment further on the investigation, except to say that he does not believe private detail abuse is common among his officers, as Woodman told Donovan. Groveland has eight full-time officers.
"I know for a fact it's not true because I review all detail records," Kirmelewicz said. "The Groveland Police Department has a core group of upstanding officers with honor and integrity."
Reached at the Groveland Police Station last week, Woodman declined to comment while at work. Subsequent attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.
Woodman has been a police officer in Groveland for about 15 years. He lives in Haverhill and is a former assistant football coach at Haverhill High School and Central Catholic High School in Lawrence. He is currently director of Haverhill Junior Football League, a city-run competitive league for children in grades five to eight.
According to Donovan's report, obtained through a public records request by The Eagle-Tribune, Woodman and another officer worked a traffic detail for Verizon Oct. 21 at the site of an automobile accident near 280 Main St. The company was there to repair a telephone poll.
Verizon called the police station at 3:56 p.m. for Woodman and then at 5:05 for a second officer. Woodman returned to the station and logged out of work at 11:13 p.m. The maximum amount of time he could have worked was seven hours, 17 minutes, according to the investigatory report.
Woodman signed and returned a Verizon "police billing form" stating he worked nine hours. He then filled out a detail slip, also stating he worked nine hours, from 4:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. The other Groveland officer who worked the Verizon detail with Woodman stated on his police time slip that he worked eight hours, the report says.
According to the police contract, officers must be paid a minimum of four hours for detail work, and eight hours pay for any time worked between four and eight hours. The detail rate set in the contract is $42 per hour, and $63 per hour for overtime.
Private details are paid for by the contractors who hire the officers. However, the town maintains a fund to immediately pay officers for detail work until it can recoup the money from the contractor, Kirmelewicz said.
Woodman's base salary is $56,170, not including overtime or detail pay. The town was unable to immediately provide information about his overtime and detail pay last week.
During his interview with Donovan, Woodman claimed that "sometimes when a detail is called in late at night, that the contractor would throw in an extra hour as a reward for the officer coming out late."
Woodman said he wrote nine hours on his police time slip because the police chief had previously told him that the time slip must match the contractor's time sheet. The outside investigator wrote that he found "no credibility" in that statement.
"Officer Woodman knowingly and willingly falsified the ending time of his detail slip to coincide with the fact that he falsified the total number of hours he worked to defraud the contractor and to gain personal benefit or reward," Donovan's report states.
The investigator wrote that "Officer Woodman's integrity and honesty must be questioned if he believes that this type of conduct is acceptable."
Kirmelewicz, who was promoted to chief in 2008, said he understands the airing of Woodman's transgression might upset the public and some members of his department. But he said police officers must be held to a high standard.
"Officers must conduct themselves to reflect favorably on the department at all times," the chief said. "I won't tolerate any misconduct on my watch, and any violation of the public trust will be investigated and dealt with swiftly and objectively."
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