Former Baltimore school officer, football coach sentenced for overtime fraud and tax evasion

Lawrence Smith Jr., one of Maryland's most successful high school football coaches, was sentenced to one year and a day in prison for overtime fraud and tax evasion.

Smith, 52, who was also a Baltimore City School Police Officer for nearly 20 years, created and executed fraudulent overtime slips, totaling more than $200,000. After his prison sentence, he will have three years of supervised release.

Smith coached Baltimore's Dunbar High School and won seven championships. He was named the Baltimore Ravens High School Coach of the Year twice.

He was arrested in September 2023.  

Football coach's fraud scheme

Smith was employed as a Baltimore City School Police Officer from May 2005 until August 2022. 

Court documents said Smith abused his position as a manager in his role as a school police officer and then detective, when he assigned himself overtime shifts that he didn't work between January 2019 and August 2022.

Smith received overtime payments totaling more than $200,000 for time he didn't work, dating back to 2005. 

Court documents showed that he claimed more than 3,330 hours of fraudulent overtime from January 2019 until August 2022. Rather than working those overtime hours, Smith was at his Baltimore County home, on his boat in the Inner Harbor, or on vacations to places like Las Vegas, Florida, and the Caribbean, according to court records.

Smith then submitted false overtime slips and directed large sums of money into a Bank of America account. 

He also avoided paying more than $60,000 in federal income taxes for 2017, 2019, and 2020.

According to the court, Smith fraudulently caused his employer to stop withholding payroll taxes while his income remained unfiled. The employer never withheld or paid his federal income taxes, due to Smith's false Forms W-4.

Since Smith never filed tax reports , and since he never filed tax returns to report income, he evaded taxes for 2017, 2019, and 2020, causing him to owe the IRS $61,233.40, according to court records.