from: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0412duicop12.html
Ex-officer faces charges of fraud, theft
Defense lawyers say prosecutions of DUIs harmed
Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 12, 2003 12:00 AM
A former Phoenix officer who spent four years testing drunken-driving suspects faces charges of stealing overtime hours from the city. Defense attorneys say the case has damaged prosecution in some DUI cases.
Kevin F. Bailey, 31, is accused in a Maricopa County grand jury indictment of fraudulent schemes and theft in connection with false overtime claims made during the past four years. Sgt. Randy Force, a police spokesman, said detectives stopped digging after they discovered 22 instances where Bailey falsified time cards to receive unwarranted overtime pay.
The top base pay for a Phoenix officer is $55,200. Force said patrol officers routinely earn overtime, but Bailey collected paychecks totaling nearly $300,000 over three years, $117,822 during 2001 alone.
"I don't know what the total dollar amount is (in losses to the city)," Force said. "We view Kevin Bailey as an exception, not the rule . . . We found this problem on our own by looking for a less expensive way to do business, and when we did find it we didn't sweep it under the carpet."
Bailey, who was arraigned Thursday in Maricopa County Superior Court, could not be reached for comment. He resigned in November after the criminal investigation began.
Bailey served eight years as an officer, the last four operating a van equipped for field sobriety tests of suspected drunk drivers. He conducted up to 400 such tests each year.
It is unclear how many cases are pending, but Force acknowledged that the indictment raises integrity questions about Bailey that could sabotage prosecution efforts.
Defense attorneys Darrow Soll and Cliff Girard said the issue has influenced DUI cases. In one hearing where Bailey was called to testify about a driver's blood-alcohol reading, they said, he took the Fifth Amendment immediately rather than answer questions about overtime fraud. Girard said he has not seen Bailey appear as a prosecution witness since then.
City prosecutors were unavailable for comment, but Girard said they are not throwing out all DUI cases where Bailey conducted exams. Instead, he said, they appear to be dismissing some and negotiating others.
Bailey's personnel files portray him as a shining star early on, winning commendations and the department's Medal of Merit in 1996. But that star plummeted, resulting in five disciplinary write-ups for shoddy work, safety violations, recalcitrance and playing video games on duty.
A written review in July warns Bailey, "You have continually made fundamental errors in performing basic police work and showing poor judgment . . . " It also says he routinely violated procedures for identifying, arresting and processing DUI suspects.
Bailey disputed those findings and argued that his faults were "nothing more than most officers do on a regular basis."