Fairfax County Police Watch: LaPorte police officer charged with embezzling FOP money

Stan Maddux

LAPORTE | A LaPorte police officer has been charged with embezzling $7,000 from the LaPorte Fraternal Order of Police for Chicago Cubs tickets and other personal expenses.

Mark Bishop, 32, is charged with Class D felony theft.

He is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in LaPorte Circuit Court.

Bishop has resigned his position with the FOP and as an officer with the LaPorte Police Department.

Indiana State Police on April 24 were brought in to investigate after the bank balance for the LaPorte Fraternal Order of Police was discovered significantly lower than anticipated.

Bishop, as treasurer of the organization, was issued a bank card strictly to carry out FOP-related financial transactions on the account.

But, according to court documents, the investigation uncovered personal transactions by Bishop on the account mostly at local restaurants and bars from March 2013 to April of this year.

The card also was used to pay for hotel stays in Evansville and Louisville along with one visit each to Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City and Four Winds Casino outside New Buffalo, court records disclosed.

There were many alleged ATM withdrawals with the card along with a $456 purchase for Chicago Cubs tickets on April 17, 2013.

According to court documents, Bishop, when confronted by FOP President Robert Metcalf, said that he was having financial difficulties and after using the card a few times realized it was "easy and then started to use the card more frequently."

In a written apology to FOP members, Bishop called his alleged actions "stupid and very foolish."

"I used the card for personal use due to the fact that I wasn't in a good financial spot in my life," said Bishop, who in his letter used the words "stupidity and selfishness" to describe his alleged behavior.

Bishop also told investigators that he intended to pay back the entire sum with money from his Indiana Public Employees Retirement Fund account.

Charges were authorized June 3 by LaPorte Circuit Court Magistrate Nancy Gettinger after she reviewed the findings.

Bishop was issued a summons to appear for his initial court hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

LaPorte County Prosecutor Bob Szilagyi said he requested Bishop be issued a summons instead of having him arrested when told by investigators that he had the money to repay the FOP.

He said a summons being issued for a felony case doesn't happen often, but in this case discretion was exercised.

"Based on the fact he was paying it back, I didn't want to issue a warrant," said Szilagyi.

Bishop was on the department for almost three years. He could face anywhere from a six-month to three-year sentence.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.