Pittsburgh police chief indicted for corruption

Just more than a month after he announced his resignation, federal authorities indicted Pittsburgh Police Chief Nate Harper last Friday.

The indictment, which comes in the midst of an FBI investigation surrounding the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, includes five separate charges — one of conspiracy to commit theft and four of tax evasion. According to the conspiracy charge, Harper allegedly instructed police bureau employees to misapply funds received by the department and personally misapplied funds for his own use. He also allegedly failed to file personal income tax returns between 2008 and 2011, resulting in one charge for each of those four years.

Saturday’s indictment marks yet another chapter in a tumultuous month for the Pittsburgh Police Department.

Federal investigators took boxes of documents from police headquarters on the North Side on Feb. 12. The documents included some from the bureau’s Special Events Office, which, among other duties, was charged with oversight of secondary employment — officers being hired for off-duty work as security personnel — at the bureau. Two days later, the investigators took records from the Greater Pittsburgh Police Federal Credit Union. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl spoke to federal investigators for two hours on Feb. 21. When he left, he announced that he would ask Harper to resign immediately.

According to court documents, Harper, who had served as police chief since October 2006, and other police employees with whom he conspired took funds that private companies and other organizations paid to the police bureau’s Special Events Office in order to hire off-duty police officers as security under the secondary-employment program.

According to the indictment, Harper allegedly conspired with at least seven unidentified others toset up a Pittsburgh Police Federal Credit Union account named “I.P.F.” and used debit cards for another named “Special Events.” They deposited funds from the secondary-employment program into these credit union accounts, later using debit cards to make unauthorized withdrawals of funds, according to court documents.

The charges contend that Harper instructed the other police employees to misapply $70,628.92 from the secondary-employment program between July 2008 and November 2012. Harper also allegedly personally misapplied $31,986.99 for his own use between September 2008 and December 2012.

Among the 14 payments that the court documents list as having wound up in the unauthorized accounts was a payment that Pitt made on Sept. 16, 2009, for $5,675.52 in order to hire security for its mobile science lab.

The indictment also listed various withdrawals “for his own personal use” from locations such as Macy’s for perfume and gift cards and Jerome Bettis Grille for food and alcohol.

Harper also allegedly failed to pay taxes for at least $470,000 in gross income between the years 2008 and 2011.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the district of Western Pennsylvania, which is prosecuting the case on behalf of the federal government, Harper faces a total sentence of up to nine years in prison, a fine of $650,000 or both.

According to court documents, the district court released Harper last Friday on an unsecured bond of $100,000.

There is a status conference for Harper’s case scheduled before U.S. Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania Cathy Bissoon on April 18.

According to reports by the Post-Gazette and WPXI, Harper’s attorneys said in a news conference Friday that Harper will plead guilty to the charges levied against him without modification.

Attorneys Robert Del Greco Jr. and Robert Leight, who are serving as defense counsel for Harper, could not be reached for comment.