The details in a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice to Methuen demanding the repayment of $170,000 in grant money are shocking.

Top police officers took tens of thousand of dollars in overtime pay from the federal "Weed and Seed" crimefighting grant. Yet the Department of Justice says there is no documentation that proves the overtime was actually worked. And Mayor William Manzi raises a clear question: Why was record-keeping under the $900,000 grant up to government standard for most police working the program, but not for these six individuals?

"Obviously, the record-keeping is shoddy for those individuals for some reason," Manzi told reporter Stephanie Chelf. "The records-keeping in other areas met the (federal grant) guidelines. Why is it different?"

The five police officers and one civilian employee - Chief Joseph Solomon, Deputy Chief Joseph Alaimo, Capt. Kristopher McCarthy, Sgt. Michael Havey, Lt. Kevin Mahoney and civilian Patricia Giarrusso - together collected $192,439 in overtime pay over five years from the grant. The Justice Department says only $21,739 of that is supported by proper documentation. The DOJ demands repayment of the remaining $170,699.

The numbers provided by the DOJ show a shocking lack of record-keeping. McCarthy received the most pay under the grant, $44,824. Yet only $569 of that could be supported by the department's records. Giarrusso, Solomon's former secretary, was paid $45,934 in overtime. None of that was supported by documentation.

Solomon, who has been out on paid leave since September while Manzi investigates the chief's leadership of a department the mayor has termed "dysfunctional," was paid $10,652 in overtime from the grant while he was a captain. Only $249 of that was supported by documents.

Andrew Gambaccini, lawyer for Solomon and Alaimo, told our reporter the employees worked "all of those hours" and "submitted the documents required by the Police Department at that time."

But the difference between record-keeping for these six individuals - all top employees of the Police Department - and the rest of the force seems striking. It raises questions. What was going on here?

These same six individuals, along with then-Capt., now Acting Chief Katherine Lavigne, charged $27,000 in travel expenses to the Weed and Seed grant for 11 trips to conferences across the country. Expenses charged on those trips ranged from the extravagant - meals at top restaurants such as famed chef Emeril Lagasse's NOLA in New Orleans - to the petty - 45 cents for some cheese sauce for pretzels purchased at a mall shop.

The travel expenses uncovered by The Eagle-Tribune resulted in the establishment of a travel review policy in Methuen.

Clearly, the undocumented overtime expenses raise further questions about Solomon's management of the Police Department and call for more centralized oversight of grants in the city.