The first state trooper to be sentenced in the major overtime fraud scandal got just one day in prison — time served — after admitting he stole more than $7,000, though prosecutors pushed for three months behind bars.
Eric Chin, 46, of Hanover will have to pay back the $7,125 he admitted to stealing through claiming overtime hours he didn’t actually work. U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns on Monday sentenced Chin to a single day in jail — which the judge deemed he’d already served before his arraignment — with three months of house arrest and nine months of supervised release.
Chin, who has been fired by the state police, pleaded guilty in December to one count of embezzlement from an agency receiving federal funds.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling had sought three months behind bars for Chin followed by a year of supervised release. In a sentencing memorandum, Lelling wrote, “Few crimes strike at the core of the justice system more than those involving law enforcement officers who choose to break, rather than uphold, the law. Though at its heart a crime motivated by simple greed, it is far more troubling than the run of the mill fraud cases in this court.”