Two former police officers of the Flint Police Department (FPD) pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to conspiring to commit theft from an organization receiving federal funds.
According to documents filed with the court, Richard Besson, 53, of Davison, Michigan, served as an FPD officer from 1989 to 2011 and Jason Groulx, 44, of Flint, Michigan, served as an FPD officer from 1998 to 2018. From June 2011 to June 2013, Besson and Groulx conspired together and with others to steal traffic crash reports from the FPD in exchange for cash payments. Many of the stolen reports were marked “unapproved” and were not publicly available.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 31. Besson and Groulx face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison, as well as a period of supervised release, restitution, and monetary penalties.
