Former West Springfield police captain convicted of taking more than $17,00 from evidence room

A former West Springfield police captain has been convicted of taking more than $17,000 from the evidence room at the city’s police department and using it for personal purposes, including paying his mortgage, Attorney General Maura Healey said Wednesday.

After a five-day bench trial in Hampden Superior Court, Judge Michael Callan on Monday found Daniel Spaulding, 54, of West Springfield, guilty of use of official position to obtain an unwarranted privilege. He will be sentenced on Sept. 21.

Authorities found that between May 2016 and May 2017, Spaulding had more than $17,000 from the West Springfield Police Department evidence room, Healey said. They also found that Spaulding later replaced all of the missing cash and returned the missing evidence bags in May 2017.

From 2011 to 2016, Spaulding oversaw the department’s detective bureau and the evidence room. In October 2016, he was transferred to the role of administrative captain but retained access to the evidence room.

In March 2017, the West Springfield Police Department conducted an inventory of cash that had been forfeited by the court and discovered that there were three missing evidence bags of money totaling $17,611, Healey said.

In May 2017, the AG’s Office interviewed Spaulding, who was not forthcoming about the details of the missing evidence bags, she said. Spaulding later turned over the missing evidence bags to the police department, saying he had believed that they had been tampered with and took the money to his office for safekeeping to give to auditors, the AG said.

When he turned the money over, it was examined by investigators, who determined that some of the bills were paid out by the Federal Reserve after the date the money originally had been seized, indicating that the money from the evidence bags had been replaced, Healey said.

The AG’s Office began an investigation after a referral from the West Springfield Police Department and the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office.

 

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3xoUmey