New Orleans-area cop charged with fudging payroll numbers

A former police offer in Harahan, Louisiana, was charged with altering the department's payroll numbers, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. Carol Ney allegedly altered payroll processing forms to show that she worked more overtime hours than actually accrued.

Ney reportedly took home approximately $33,000 in regular salary, but her dishonest calculations on the payroll forms allowed her to accumulate more than $10,000 in unwarranted extra pay between October 2009 and September 2010. Ney covered her tracks by claiming that she was assisting victims of crime.

"Ney had to submit payroll forms certifying that she had indeed worked overtime. But prosecutors say she falsified those reports by either not performing the work at all or by aiding victims during regular work hours," the Times-Picayune reported.

The fuzzy payroll math had slipped through the cracks until the city's new police chief Mac Dickinson alerted the local FBI branch regarding the miscalculations. Dickinson reached out to the FBI as a significant portion of the departments funding came from a federal grant.