Dallas Police Officer Matthew Rushing Pleads Guilty To Writing Fake Tickets
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Dallas Police Officer Matthew Rushing admitted in federal court he once wrote fake tickets on the job.
Rushing was arrested in June and has now pleaded guilty to the crime.
Some of the fake tickets prosecutors say he wrote involve vehicles that weren't drivable, had other violations added on to traffic stops or were written for made up people.
In some cases, arrest warrants were issued for victims who didn't realize they were wrongly accused.
Rushing was placed on administrative leave by the Dallas Police Department in June.
He faces up to five years in prison.
Sentencing is set for March 2020.
According to his plea papers, Rushing submitted at least 38 fraudulent "Officer's Daily Grant Activity Reports," which included citations for fictitious persons and events, over a nine month period from 2018 to 2019.
After Rushing concluded a traffic stop, he admitted, he sometimes altered the violator's true identity by changing their name or date of birth, causing arrest warrants to be issued for drivers who didn't exist.
Other times, he admitted, he citied drivers for nonexistent violations after they departed the scene of the incident.
Rushing admitted he submitted these report with the intention of collecting overtime pay funded by federal grants from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration through a program administered by the Texas Department of Transportation and the Dallas Police Department.
