A former Joint Base Langley-Eustis civilian employee claimed more than $1.4 million in overtime over a 17-year period.
Michelle M. Holt, 52, of Matthews, was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison for computer fraud and theft of government property.
Federal prosecutors described it as “an extensive timekeeping fraud that resulted in losses of over $1.4 million…”
Holt was ordered to pay the money back.
According to court documents Holt was a federal employee for the Department of Defense. She was a secretary for U.S. Air Force, Air Combat Command, Communication Support Squadron, at Joint Base Langley-Eustis.
Prosecutors said Holt was a salaried employee on the General Schedule (GS) grade for the federal civilian workforce. As such, she was entitled to overtime pay if authorized by her employer, was also entitled to other forms of holiday and annual leave, and premium pay for any federal holidays worked.
An investigation determined that from December 2001 to July 2018, “Holt falsely claimed over 42,000 hours in unauthorized overtime for hours she did not work, as well as other amounts of unauthorized holiday leave, sick leave and annual leave…”
In recent years, Holt’s overtime pay was more than double that of her regular salary. Holt accomplished the fraud by making manual retroactive adjustments to protected computer time and attendance systems to add overtime, reverse leave taken and reverse holiday leave. In doing so, Holt used another employee’s log-in information without that employee’s knowledge or authorization, prosecutors said.
