Wichita police lieutenant charged with wire fraud, false statement

A federal indictment unsealed Tuesday charges Wichita police Lt. Heather Bachman with making fraudulent reports to get “paid for working a part-time job while she was on duty,” U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said.

Bachman, 40, is charged with seven counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to a federal investigator, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement Tuesday. According to the indictment, the time frame for the alleged crimes spans the past two years. The Wichita Police Department and the FBI investigated the case.

In a statement Tuesday afternoon, the Police Department said the city could confirm that Bachman has been suspended without pay. Otherwise, the statement said, “City officials do not comment on pending legal matters. … City staff will continue to work with the United States Attorney’s Office on this matter.”

Neither Bachman nor an attorney representing her could be reached on Tuesday.

Over the years, Bachman has worked in a variety of roles with the Wichita Police Department. She is a former homicide detective who helped investigate the 2006 murder of 14-year-old Chelsea Brooks. In 2010, she gave a presentation to the City Council about efforts to fight graffiti; in 2011, she was recognized for being part of a community college diversity leadership program.

The federal indictment accuses Bachman of defrauding the Wichita Police Department by working part time for Orion Security Services while on duty and being paid by the Police Department, the office said. Authorities allege that she “committed wire fraud by emailing timesheets to Orion.”

One of the charges accuses her of sending an email to Orion as a mileage claim. The indictment says she instead used a marked police patrol car.

Another charge accuses her of “electronically reporting to the city that she worked from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. on July 2, 2015, which was not true.”

Another count alleges that Bachman filed a tax return with the Kansas Department of Revenue that didn’t accurately report part-time job earnings.

She is charged with making a false statement to an FBI investigator that she didn’t use a police car to transport someone for her part-time job. “In fact, she transported a jewelry company representative and jewelry in her marked patrol car on Feb. 17, 2015,” the statement said.

If Bachman is convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each wire fraud count and a maximum of five years and a fine of $250,000 on the false-statement charge, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 1:10 PM with the headline "Wichita police lieutenant charged with wire fraud, false statement."