23-Year Veteran Charged With Theft, Falsifying Time Sheets

Federal prosecutors have charged a D.C. police officer with stealing more than $178,000 from the city by falsely claiming that she worked overtime to catch speeders.

Karin Coppens, a 23-year D.C. police veteran, allegedly got the overtime by claiming she did extra work for the department's photo radar program. But Coppens, who was assigned to the training academy, never did the radar detail, according to charging papers.

In the charging papers, prosecutors wrote that Coppens filed 94 time sheets covering more than 3,400 hours for work she falsely claimed to have done from August 2004 through June of this year. She also forged the signature of a supervisor on the paperwork, prosecutors wrote, which made the alleged fraud "almost undetectable."

She was paid $178,611, they said. Authorities charged Coppens with theft and made it a federal offense because the program uses federal funds. They also want her to pay back the money.

Numerous D.C. police officers participate in the radar program, the charging papers said. The city offers overtime to officers who undergo 40 hours of training for the detail. The officers then staff photo-speed guns in police cruisers across the city.

Coppens never participated in training for the program, the charging papers said. The charge against her was reported in yesterday's Washington Examiner.

The case was filed last week in a "criminal information" document that can be submitted only with the defendant's consent. The filing can be made only after a defendant waives the right to have the case reviewed by a grand jury. It typically signals that a plea agreement is in the works.

Coppens's attorney, Harold Martin II, said his client was on sick leave and declined to comment further on the case. "There is still a lot we don't know. The investigations are continuing," he said.

No date has been set for Coppens's hearing, which is scheduled to be held in front of U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer.