By Sarah Roebuck
Police1
BOSTON — A former Massachusetts State Police trooper who pleaded guilty in an overtime fraud case may receive his $1 million pension after a judge overturned a forfeiture order, the Boston Globe reports.
In 2019, John Giulino, 73, was convicted in an overtime fraud case. He was sentenced to two years probation, 100 hours of community service and ordered to pay back more than $29,000 he was found to have stolen in overtime hours he did not work, according to the report. In addition to those conditions, the State Retirement Board ordered Giulino to forfeit his pension.
On Sept. 13, Judge Mark J. Pasquariello ruled that Giulino’s constitutional rights to protection from excessive fines under the Eighth Amendment were violated when he was ordered to lose his pension.
“The determination ordering forfeiture of the plaintiff’s 1.06 million pension was grossly disproportionate to the gravity of the offenses to which he pled guilty,” Pasquariello wrote in his ruling.
Giulino, who was a lieutenant at the time, committed overtime fraud between 2015 and 2016. According to court documents, Giulino had claimed 85 four-hour shifts that he hadn’t actually worked, leading to roughly $29,000 in unearned overtime pay, the Boston Globe reports.
He retired in 2017 and pleaded guilty in 2019 to two counts of making a false claim to a public employer, two counts of larceny over $250 and two counts of procurement by fraud.