A former Scranton police officer pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of theft of extra-duty pay and was sentenced to one year of probation.

In pleading no contest on March 19 in Lackawanna County Court, David Mitchell, 47, did not admit guilt, though he also did not contest the charge filed against him in November by the state attorney general’s office or his sentence or conviction.

“I’m not going to plead guilty to something I believe I didn’t do. I’m maintaining my innocence,” Mitchell said Monday in a phone interview.

Mitchell’s plea and sentencing brought an end to an investigation dating to 2021 of him and two other city police officers — former Sgt. Jeff Vaughn and former Patrolman Paul Helring — and alleging fraud via unworked overtime at some of the city’s low-income housing developments where extra-duty shifts were paid with federal funds.

An agreement between the Scranton Police Department and the Scranton Housing Authority had police working multiple shifts per week patrolling Valley View Terrace and Hilltop Manor, and the authority using federal funds to reimburse the city for officers’ pay for those shifts.

Based on “complaints received from confidential sources,” the FBI in 2021 started the probe of the three officers, who “voluntarily signed up for extra duty patrol shifts of low income housing units in the City of Scranton but were suspected of not showing up entirely or at all for the shifts,” according to the criminal complaint against Mitchell.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania prosecuted and convicted Vaughn and Helring, in 2023 and 2024, respectively, in federal court. Vaughn and Helring both pleaded guilty to a felony count of defrauding the federally funded program and each was sentenced to six months in prison.

At some point, the FBI transferred the investigation of Mitchell to the Lackawanna County district attorney’s office, which referred the matter to the state attorney general’s office, according to the complaint. This state investigation determined that Mitchell, between January and May 2022, asserted he worked seven separate overtime shifts for the Scranton Housing Authority, but remained at home during six of those shifts. In November 2025, the state attorney general charged Mitchell with misdemeanor theft of submitting false patrol logs claiming he physically patrolled the complexes when he did not.

Under FBI questioning on May 17, 2022, Mitchell said he signed up for extra-duty patrols at the housing complexes but remained at home waiting to be dispatched to an incident, if necessary. Mitchell said he was never told he had to report to the housing complexes in person and actively patrol, notwithstanding that was the intent of the grant-paid duty. Mitchell said there were times he patrolled the complexes with another officer, which demonstrated he “knew and understood what was expected of a Scranton Police Officer on patrol and chose not to perform his duties,” the complaint said in part. Investigators maintained Mitchell also submitted false patrol logs to the Scranton Housing Authority through the Scranton Police Department.

“A police officer providing false reports stating he is present and patrolling an area when he is not presents multiple downstream effects which could impair investigations, frustrate policy efforts and overall contribute to a more dangerous environment for residents,” the complaint said.

Scranton Police Chief Thomas Carroll placed Mitchell on administrative leave on May 17, 2022, and he later left the Police Department as of June 27, 2025. Mitchell applied for, and was granted, a length-of-service pension, which is deferred until he reaches the age of 55, a city spokesman had said in November.

Unlike Vaughn and Helring, who were convicted of felonies and lost their pensions, Mitchell was charged with a misdemeanor and will not be subject to a loss of pension. State law makes a pension subject to revocation if a recipient is found guilty of, or pleads guilty to, any criminal offense classified as a felony or punishable by a prison term of over five years, according to the state website.

At Vaughn’s 2023 sentencing, his attorney said he would not receive a pension. Before being charged, Helring had gotten a disability pension. But the city’s Police Pension Board later revoked it because of Helring’s felony conviction. Helring appealed, but a judge in 2024 upheld the pension board and dismissed the appeal.