logo
Former DC police officer pleads guilty to wire fraud

Former DC police officer pleads guilty to wire fraud

Yahoo07-03-2025
WASHINGTON () — A former patrol officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) pleaded guilty on Thursday to COVID emergency loan fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office (USAO) announced.
Kalynn Fields, 34, of Baltimore, Md., filed false and misleading information in order to get $35,000 in Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDLs) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans.
According to court documents, Fields created two businesses in June 2021 and May 2022, which she used to apply for the loans. At the time, she was a patrol officer with MPD and failed to report the outside business venture, despite MPD's policy requiring her to do so.
Maryland, DC Attorneys General sue federal agencies to stop mass firings of federal probationary employees
In September 2021, Fields reportedly submitted a PPP loan application for $20,000 on behalf of one of her businesses.
She claimed the business was 'General Freight Trucking, Lond Distance' when she did not have a freight trucking license or the insurance required to run such a business.
Fields 'had not complied with the PPP Program rules and misspend the PPP funds she received as part of her fraudulent PPP loan application,' court documents stated.
She also had someone submit an EIDL application, on behalf of one of the businesses, containing materially false statements.
When the initial application was denied, she had someone upload fabricated documents to the application portal.
Falls Church man found guilty of hate crime for threatening church members
The application was later approved.
Fields pleaded guilty to wire fraud on March 6, 2025, having obtained $35,000 in loans.
She faces up to 20 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 20.
DC News Now reached out to the Metropolitan Police Department for a statement and is waiting for a response.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump administration backs off demand to replace DC police chief — but directs cops to follow federal immigration laws
Trump administration backs off demand to replace DC police chief — but directs cops to follow federal immigration laws

New York Post

time3 hours ago

  • New York Post

Trump administration backs off demand to replace DC police chief — but directs cops to follow federal immigration laws

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday reversed course and agreed to leave the Washington, D.C., police chief in control of the department, while Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a new memo, directed the District's police to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement 'notwithstanding' city law. Bondi's new order Friday came after officials in the nation's capital sued to block President Donald Trump's takeover of the Washington police. On Thursday night. his administration escalated its intervention into the city's law enforcement by naming a federal official as the new emergency head of the department. The attorney general's new order represents a partial retreat for the Trump administration in the face of intense skepticism from a judge over the legality of Bondi's earlier directive that sought to put the police force under the full control of the federal government. But Bondi also signaled the administration would continue to pressure D.C. leaders to help federal authorities aggressively pursue immigrants in the country illegally, despite city laws on the books that limit cooperation between police and immigration authorities. Advertisement 3 DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, left, and DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb leave court on Friday after suing over the Trump administration's attempt to sideline the district's police chief. AP 3 Chief Pamela Smith will remain in place as the administration backed away from the order. Getty Images The District of Columbia's police chief said Trump's earlier move to sideline her would threaten law and order by upending the command structure. 'In my nearly three decades in law enforcement, I have never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive,' Chief Pamela Smith said in a court filing. Advertisement The two sides sparred in court for hours Friday before U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who is overseeing the lawsuit. She indicated the law likely doesn't grant the Trump administration power to fully take over city police, but it probably does give the president more power than the city might like. 'The way I read the statute, the president can ask, the mayor must provide, but the president can't control,' said Reyes, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden. The judge asked the two sides to hammer out a compromise, and promised to issue a court order temporarily blocking the administration from naming a new chief if they couldn't agree. An attorney for the Trump administration, Yaakov Roth, said in court that the move to sideline Smith came after an immigration order that still held back some aid to federal authorities. He argued that the president has broad authority to determine what kind of help police in Washington must provide. Advertisement 3 Protesters mass outside the Metropolitan Police Department in DC on Friday. AP Washington officials were pushing in court to halt U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's order Thursday to put the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Terry Cole, in charge of Washington police. The police takeover is the latest move by Trump to test the limits of his legal authorities to carry out his agenda, relying on obscure statutes and a supposed state of emergency to bolster his tough-on-crime message and his plans to speed up the mass deportation of people in the United States illegally.

DOJ backs away from appointing emergency DC police commissioner
DOJ backs away from appointing emergency DC police commissioner

The Hill

time4 hours ago

  • The Hill

DOJ backs away from appointing emergency DC police commissioner

The Justice Department agreed to back away from appointing a commissioner to take command of D.C. police after a federal judge expressed concerns Friday. Government attorneys said at a hearing that Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) head Terry Cole will instead become President Trump's designee to request services from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) under the president's emergency authority invoked this week. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes indicated she was prepared to declare Cole's installment as commissioner unlawful if the administration did not change course. After nearly two hours of private conversations between the two sides, the Justice Department relented without the judge intervening. 'We're rewriting this in the next 45 minutes,' Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth told the judge. It marks a victory, at least for now, for city officials in their lawsuit that seeks to keep command of the police force under MPD Chief Pamela Smith. But the judge suggested the administration is ultimately likely to succeed in at least some of its efforts to demand that MPD officers assist with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 'If the president declares an emergency with respect to whatnot, and says I want the services of the MPD to help ICE arrest illegal aliens, I don't — I'm not sure that there's anything wrong with that,' Reyes said. The judge signaled she'll hold additional proceedings on that and other questions next week. In the meantime, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb's (D) office made clear they're prepared to return to court immediately if they're not satisfied with the administration's promised rewrite. Citing a crime emergency, Trump on Monday invoked emergency powers under the Home Rule Act to begin exerting control over MPD as he also deployed the National Guard. The battle over MPD landed in court after the administration escalated its efforts on Thursday via a new order from Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi announced Cole would become MPD's emergency police commissioner and must approve any new policy directives moving forward. The order also lifted several MPD practices related to cooperation with immigration enforcement. Schwalb quickly sued by the morning, leading to a hastily scheduled hearing in Reyes's courtroom Friday afternoon. Reyes is an appointee of former President Biden. At the hearing, the judge noted she was the first judge in the Home Rule Act's roughly 50-year history to consider the emergency provision Trump has invoked. 'Huzzah!' the judge exclaimed.

Michigan scandal timeline: Detailing Wolverines' NCAA run-ins late in Jim Harbaugh tenure
Michigan scandal timeline: Detailing Wolverines' NCAA run-ins late in Jim Harbaugh tenure

USA Today

time6 hours ago

  • USA Today

Michigan scandal timeline: Detailing Wolverines' NCAA run-ins late in Jim Harbaugh tenure

By the end of his nine-year run as Michigan's football coach, Jim Harbaugh had transformed his alma mater into one of the top programs nationally, fulfilling the high expectations that greeted him when he was hired in December 2014. In each of Harbaugh's final three seasons, the Wolverines won the Big Ten and made the College Football Playoff. They ended an agonizingly long losing streak to rival Ohio State, beating the Buckeyes in each of Harbaugh's final three years in Ann Arbor. In what would be his final act as Michigan's coach, Harbaugh helped lead the Wolverines to the College Football Playoff national championship at the end of the 2023 season, giving Michigan its first national title since 1997. At a certain point, though, Harbaugh's Wolverines found themselves in the headlines just as much for their off-field transgressions as their on-field triumphs. REQUIRED READING: Did Jim Harbaugh know about Michigan sign stealing? NCAA: 'Incomplete' The final stretch of Harbaugh's Michigan tenure was mired in controversy, with the football program he had built into a behemoth at the center of multiple NCAA scandals. First, there was an NCAA investigation centered around impermissible contact Harbaugh had with recruits and players while access to them was limited during the COVID-19 pandemic. The NCAA found that Harbaugh "engaged in unethical conduct, failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance and violated head coach responsibility obligations' and it handed him a four-year show cause. What followed was even more seismic. In October 2023, news first broke that the Wolverines were being investigated for illegal in-person scouting of future opponents, a scheme centered around previously little-known Michigan staffer Connor Stalions. After nearly two full and seldom uninteresting years, that saga came to a close on Aug. 15, with the NCAA slapping the Wolverines with what's projected to be a $30 million fine, suspending head coach Sherrone Moore for one game during the 2026 season, and handing Harbaugh and Stalions show causes of 10 and eight years, respectively. With that turbulent, albeit incredibly successful, stretch in Michigan's long and storied history nearing its end, pending an appeal of the ruling from Michigan, here's a look back at some of the major events of the final years of Harbaugh's tenure: REQUIRED READING: University of Michigan claps back at NCAA, will appeal sign-stealing punishment Michigan football scandals timeline Jan. 5, 2023: Michigan receives a draft of an NCAA notice of allegations in which the organization details allegations of impermissible contact with recruits during a dead period in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as an off-field analyst being involved in on-field coaching. At the time, it is reported that Harbaugh met with recruits and bought them hamburgers at the Brown Jug, a popular restaurant near the school's Ann Arbor campus. Jan. 20, 2023: Michigan co-offensive coordinator Matt Weiss is fired after the university said he failed to attend a meeting to discuss whether he had received unauthorized access to computer accounts assigned to other people in December 2022. University police had confirmed there was an active investigation into potential computer crimes at Michigan's football facility, Schembechler Hall. May 20, 2023: Three days after he was brought on as Michigan's assistant director of football recruiting, Glenn "Shemy" Schembechler, the son of legendary Wolverines coach Bo Schembechler, resigns after it was revealed he had liked a series of offensive Twitter posts, including from accounts that contended that slavery and Jim Crow segregation had positive effects on Black people and families. Aug. 12, 2023: The NCAA takes the unusual step of publicly commenting on an ongoing investigation, with vice president of hearing operations Derrick Crawford noting in a statement that "The Michigan infractions case is related to impermissible on and off-campus recruiting during the COVID-19 dead period and impermissible coaching activities — not a cheeseburger.' Aug. 21, 2023: Michigan suspends Harbaugh for the first three games of the upcoming season. The Wolverines go 3-0 in those contests, defeating East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green with four different head coaches. Oct. 18, 2023: The NCAA notifies Michigan and the Big Ten that it has received allegations that the Wolverines were involved in a sign-stealing operation that involved advanced, in-person scouting that is illegal under NCAA rules. Harbaugh denied being a part of the scheme or having knowledge of it. One day later, it is revealed that the probe is centered around Michigan off-field analyst Connor Stalions, who reportedly purchased tickets in his own name to games at 12 different Big Ten schools in order to have people film the signals used by coaches of upcoming Wolverines opponents. Oct. 26, 2023: Michigan confirms the FBI has joined the investigation into Weiss' unauthorized access into computer accounts. Oct. 31, 2023: Central Michigan announces it's investigating photographs of a man who resembles Stalions, wearing sunglasses and a Chippewas hat, standing on the team's sideline for its game earlier that season against Michigan State. Nov. 3, 2023: Stalions resigns from his position at Michigan, noting in a statement to The Athletic that he did 'not want to be a distraction.' Nov. 10, 2023: The Big Ten suspends Harbaugh for the final three games of the regular season, citing a violation of the league's sportsmanship policy. Michigan files a temporary restraining order, but eventually drops the case and accepts the punishment. With offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore serving as the interim head coach, the Wolverines go 3-0 in those games, highlighted by wins against top-10 Penn State and Ohio State teams. Nov. 17, 2023: Linebackers coach Chris Partridge is fired by the school after he allegedly destroyed evidence on a computer related to the sign-stealing scandal. Partridge, now an assistant coach with the Seattle Seahawks, denies the claim. Jan. 8, 2024: Michigan defeats Washington 34-13 in the championship game of the College Football Playoff, giving the Wolverines their first national title since 1997. Harbaugh says after the game that "We stood strong and tall because we knew we were innocent' when asked about the ongoing investigations into his program. Jan. 24, 2024: Harbaugh leaves Michigan after nine seasons to become the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. Two days later, Moore is elevated to head coach. March 16, 2024: Newly hired defensive line coach Greg Scruggs is arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated in Ann Arbor, with a blood alcohol level that's double the legal limit. He resigns five days later. April 15, 2024: Michigan recruiting staffer and former star quarterback Denard Robinson is arrested after being involved in a single-car crash at 3 a.m. in Ann Arbor while intoxicated. He's suspended and one month later, the university confirms he's no longer with the program. Aug. 5, 2024: A leaked notice of allegations from the NCAA states that Moore deleted a thread of 52 text messages with Stalions the same day reports first surfaced about the sign-stealing operation. Two days later, Harbaugh is given a one-year suspension and a four-year show cause by the NCAA for his role in the COVID recruiting violations. March 20, 2025: Weiss is indicted by the FBI on 14 counts of unauthorized access and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft. According to the indictment, Weiss hacked into university computer systems and accessed personal data of over 3,000 Michigan athletes, most of whom were women. The next day, Weiss is sued by two former Michigan athletes, who allege he accessed their private information for his personal use. At least 74 women have joined the lawsuit. May 5, 2025: As part of a self-imposed sanction, Michigan suspends Moore for two games for the upcoming football season – a Week 3 matchup against Central Michigan and a Week 4 game against Nebraska. June 27, 2025: Harbaugh and former Michigan president Santa Ono are among the 48 people from the university added to the lawsuit against Weiss. Plaintiffs allege that the school knew about Weiss hacking into computer systems, but still allowed him to coach in the Wolverines' semifinal loss to TCU in the College Football Playoff at the end of the 2022 season. July 29, 2025: Central Michigan receives a notice of allegations from the NCAA over its role in Stalions' sign-stealing scheme. Aug. 15, 2025: The NCAA issues its findings in the Michigan in-person scouting case, including a 10-year show-cause for Harbaugh, eight years for Stalions, three years for Robinson and two years for Moore. Moore is also suspended for a game. Michigan announces hours later it will appeal the ruling. Aug. 15, 2025: The NCAA's finding repeatedly reference Harbaugh's lack of cooperation in the investigation into Michigan and his status as a repeat offender. According to the NCAA in a section subtitled "Head coach responsibility:" "The scouting scheme and recruiting violations in the football program demonstrate that Harbaugh violated the principles of head coach responsibility. Harbaugh did not embrace or enforce a culture of compliance during his tenure, and his program had a contentious relationship with Michigan's compliance office, leading coaches and staff to disregard NCAA rules. "For the scouting violations that occurred during the 2021 and 2022 seasons, Harbaugh failed to demonstrate that he adequately promoted compliance or monitored his program. Harbaugh is also automatically responsible for the scouting and recruiting violations that occurred after Jan. 1, 2023. "

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store