WILLISTON, Vt. -
A former Vermont state trooper is accused of writing nearly 1,000 fake traffic tickets. Now the commander of the Vermont State Police is speaking out about it.
Former Sgt. Jim Deeghan resigned in July in an overtime pay scandal. He's now accused of manufacturing traffic tickets-- almost 1,000 of them-- over 12 years. The tickets were never filed with the judicial bureau, only with the state police.
"We don't know exactly why yet, but at some point within our own agency, and any state agency, there has to be trust. A human is involved. And at this point, he was that person that entered the tickets. So we look at that now and we were betrayed and we will create a process that will have checks and balances, but at the end of the day it's still a human being that's going to process this. So we're still going to rely on trust but we're going to have to be tighter on the oversight," L'Esperance said.
The traffic ticket scandal came to light during an investigation into Deeghan's overtime pay. He's accused of padding his time sheet to the tune of an extra $140,000 he didn't earn. L'Esperance says investigators have gone back three months and looked at all trooper pay and he's confident no one else is scamming the system.
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Jim Deeghan
