DETROIT, Mich. (WXYZ) — Repeated allegations of misconduct didn’t stop Steve Perry’s rise within the same city he was accused of stealing from.
See Ross Jones' full investigation in the video below
As 7 News Detroit first reported in June, Perry has worked as a police officer, a fire inspector and a court officer for the City of Detroit despite being repeatedly accused of theft and spending time in jail.
But newly obtained investigative records show that Perry’s history of alleged misconduct began years earlier than first understood and included allegations of forging police records that alarmed state officials.
Almost all of the findings were news to the departments that hired him.
Watch below: Ex-Detroit cop, jailed over theft, now accused of stealing from Detroit Fire Dept.
Today, DPD’s internal affairs division is investigating claims that Perry committed payroll fraud while he was a fire lieutenant, probing questions over nearly $140,000 in overtime that led him to resign earlier this year.
“The method for which he was submitting and getting compensated for overtime, it seems pretty blatant to be fraudulent,” said Commander Michael McGinnis, who heads DPD’s professional standards division.
The department’s investigation into Perry began in April.
“Clearly, this individual doesn’t hold the character that is required to serve as a law enforcement officer,” McGinnis said.
Perry was hired by the fire department after being jailed over theft as a Detroit police officer. He was accused in 2009 of stealing nearly $30,000 from an auto theft tip line, ultimately pleading to a misdemeanor.
It wasn't even the first time Perry had been accused of theft while an officer.
Five years earlier, while still a police officer, he was accused of submitting “fictitious court appearance notices” to collect extra pay.
“That investigation found evidence that he was turning in court slips for cases that he wasn’t necessarily subpoenaed on,” McGinnis said.
Perry claimed he attended dozens of court hearings that the investigation found didn’t actually happen. Instead, he got paid for “conversing with officers” while off-duty to the tune of $3,883, according to DPD.
An investigation sustained findings of misconduct, but for reasons even DPD can’t explain today, nothing seems to have happened to Perry until four years later, when he lost his job over the tip line theft.
Two years after Perry lost his job as an officer, he would face allegations of forgery when he tried to get his law enforcement license reactivated.
According to the state agency that licenses officers, Perry presented what he said was an “investigators report” from his 2009 theft case, claiming that “information from 4 informants exonerated him.”
Watch below: Ex-fire inspector, cop accused of theft now suspended as Detroit court officer
When the state shared the investigation with DPD, they said it wasn’t real. Perry would be accused of forging it and later admitted he’d “generated the report on his own” in his efforts to “avoid the embarrassment” of the real investigation.
The state denied his application, deeming him “ineligible to re-apply” and referring the case to the Attorney General, who did not ultimately bring charges.
Perry would go on to work for the city twice more.
Chief Judge William McConico says the 36th District Court didn’t know about almost any of Perry’s background when it hired him in 2018 as a court officer—a job he was actively working until June—but said he did disclose his 2009 conviction from the auto theft case.
“Are you surprised that after all these allegations—including going to jail—he’s not only found more jobs, but jobs in law enforcement?” asked Channel 7’s Ross Jones.
“Yes,” McConico said. “There’s no other way—I'm shocked.”
Perry remains suspended from the 36th District Court, which said their current hiring standards would not have allowed him to be hired today.
“I can’t speak to why the fire department hired him," McConico said. "I can’t speak to why we hired him, because I don’t have any contact with the previous court administrator. But he has received a lot of chances, and he’s run out of chances here.”
Perry has not been charged with any crimes related to the alleged overtime fraud out of the Detroit Fire Department, but DPD says they are close to submitting a warrant to Wayne County's prosecutor.
A spokesman for City of Detroit said Perry was hired by the fire department at a time when the city didn't have a "do not re-hire" list for troubled former employees. They use one now.
Perry did not respond to repeated attempts to reach him for comment.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.