An officer who has been employed by the Montgomery County Department of Police since July 2010 was indicted this week on charges that he accepted workers’ compensation payments from Baltimore City while being employed as a Towson University police officer and lying about it under oath.
The Maryland Office of the State Prosecutor said in a statement released Tuesday that officer Gilbert L. Payne of Baltimore was charged with perjury and felony workers’ compensation fraud.
The prosecutor’s office says Payne, 40, left the Baltimore City Police Department on a full disability pension in 2007 and then later testified in a workers’ compensation hearing in 2008 that he was not employed and had not been employed since retiring from the city police department. At the time however, he was employed full time by Towson University.
“Testifying falsely under oath and making false statements in order to fraudulently obtain additional workers’ compensation funds is never acceptable,” State Prosecutor Emmet C. Davitt said in a statement. “It is particularly egregious, however, when such acts are committed by a police officer sworn to uphold the law.”
Montgomery County police said in a statement issued Tuesday night that Payne is on administrative leave pending the outcome of his legal case trial and an administrative investigation by the department.
Payne faces up to 10 years in prison on the perjury charge and up to 15 years in prison and a $15,000 fine on the workers’ compensation charge.
