News and Media
Best Ne'er Do Well
Dennis McLaughlin
Published: September 22, 2010
Dennis McLaughlin was a Baltimore City Department of Public Works utility repairman in 2007 when he was sentenced to serve 18 months in prison for sexual abuse of a child. During the nine months he actually served, he took more than $12,000 in vacation and medical leave and paid leave from his union’s “sick [leave] bank,” before enduring more than 100 days without pay. Then he returned to work, with city officials none the wiser. The scandal, broken on the online Investigative Voice, resulted in an Inspector General’s investigation but, perhaps unsurprisingly, no criminal charges against either McLaughlin or his accomplices—who filed fraudulent medical leave papers and otherwise covered for him—though the city has sued him and his mother to recover the money. In January, McLaughlin was charged with sex offenses, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and impersonating a police officer; he pled guilty to fourth degree sexual assault and false imprisonment in July.
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