Jacksonville, FL — A 14-year veteran of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is accused of a “pattern” of billing multiple employers for the same hours worked.
Zone 5 Patrol Officer Frank Holtsman has been arrested for official misconduct and scheme to defraud. Undersheriff Pay Ivey says their investigation started in early April, when Holtsman was accused of billing both the City and a secondary employer for overlapping hours.
“The employee was actually working several jobs and was being compensated for hours that he was not actually working,” Ivey says.
JSO officers are allowed to work secondary employment in security, traffic, or similar areas- while not on the clock with JSO. The secondary employment companies pay a fee and hold a permit to contract off-duty JSO, with the officers in turn allowed to wear their uniforms, use their JSO patrol cars, and similar things.
Ivey says they surveilled Holtsman for around ten days, and in that time he only worked about half of what he billed for- defrauding some $900 in that time span alone.
“Repetitively, he continued this behavior over the time period which we watched him, and it was pretty consistent over the time that we did, how we found out was surveillance,” Ivey says.
The scheme to defraud charge stems from this alleged pattern. The official misconduct charge deals with Holtsman filling out JSO records dealing with the secondary employment, during which he allegedly lied about where he was working and what he was being paid for.
Holtsman’s 14-year history with JSO shows almost four dozen citizen and in house complaints, although more than half of those were either determined to be unfounded or Holtsman was exonerated.
“I’m not saying he’s guilty of anything in that history, I’m just saying that is a lot of complaints in the perspective of the individuals or citizens he’s come in contact with that say they felt maybe- each one of those interactions- that they did something he didn’t understand or approve of,” Ivey says.
There have been six arrests of JSO employees this year. Eleven were arrested in all of 2016.
“We’re not going to tolerate it,” Ivey says.
Holtsman was arrested Friday morning, and elected to go on suspension leave without pay. Ivey says he will recommend termination.
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