Police chief gets prison time for double-dipping two departments

<p>The police chief in the small, middle Georgia town of Unadilla has been sentenced to five years in prison for charging two different police departments for working the same hours.</p><p>Leonard Smith was sentenced Friday after being convicted in Dooly County Superior Court on three counts of "false swearing."</p><p>He was charged with claiming simultaneous work hours in 2005 and 2006 at the Unadilla department, where he was part-time chief, and the Fort Valley Police Department, where he was employed full-time.</p><p>Fort Valley Police Chief John David Anderson said an internal investigation revealed irregularities in Smith's payroll records.</p><p>When confronted about the irregularities, he said Smith quit his position at Fort Valley, but stayed on as chief in Unadilla.</p><p>A grand jury indicted him in February for "knowingly and willingly" making false statement on time cards on at least eight occasions.</p><p>Smith previously had been fired for double-dipping when he was employed by Fort Valley police from 1983 to 1987, according to a news release from that department.</p><p>That time, he was accused of filing for hours from the department and for off-duty work as a security guard. He was later rehired by a former police chief in 1999.</p><p>"I hate that somebody had to go to jail, but when you make those decisions, you have to pay the consequences," Anderson said.</p><p>Smith is being held at Dooly County Jail. Unadilla, which has a population of about 3,000 people, is about 40 miles south of Macon.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x2e13ac0)</p>