USPTO EXAMINER ARRESTED FOR TIMESHEET INFRACTIONS: In a seemingly bizarre story, the Patent Office Professional Association (POPA) is reporting that a patent examiner was handcuffed and arrested at the USPTO June 2 for the charge that he allegedly did "embezzle funds by submitting false hours of employment, such funds belonging to the U.S. Government and having a value of $200 or more," according to the arrest warrant. This marks the first time in known USPTO history that an employee has been arrested and criminally charged by local police for a workplace time or attendance infraction.

The USPTO is alleging that the embezzlement took place between February and September 2004. The agency first discussed the problem at an investigatory interview with the employee in January 2005. The agency has not clarified why it waited many, many months after these problems began to begin addressing them. Unexplained is the total absence of progressive discipline, which is the usual course for employee infractions.

The USPTO is basing its case on the ID card-in, card-out time records it keeps on employees at its new Carlyle campus.

At the investigatory interview the USPTO suggested that if the employee paid back the time, it would take that into consideration when determining consequences. The employee was working 10 hours per pay period of voluntary overtime specifically to that end. Two weeks after the investigatory meeting, two Office of the Inspector General (OIG) representatives visited the employee.

Though the examiner requested his right to consult with union counsel, the OIG reps denied that request, which is considered a gross violation of his statutory rights according to Supreme Court case law. At that meeting, the OIG reps stated that the examiner had to sign papers confirming that he was absent for specific hours. The employee and the union received no copies of those papers.

On June 2, the examiner's supervisor told the examiner that someone wanted to talk to him at the guard's desk. When he went down, OIG special agents handcuffed him and immediately turned him over to Alexandria police, who charged him with a felony, took him to jail, and released him on bail. He is awaiting trial. While POPA does not condone employees claiming pay for work not done, the union is dismayed at the extreme action taken by the agency.

UPDATE: From the Just an Examiner Blog, an Examiner posts additional information on the situation - according to the post, the fraud was quite massive in scale, and the action was taken by the IG office, which is not part of the PTO and does not answer to PTO management.