SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 A months-long internal investigation into overtime irregularities within the Lackawanna County Sheriff’s Office has now been referred for possible criminal review.<\/p>\n
Lackawanna County Sheriff Mark McAndrew requested a criminal investigation involving two deputy sheriffs who were the subject of the internal probe, according to county officials.<\/p>\n
District Attorney Brian Gallagher confirmed he received the referral from McAndrew on June 3 and has asked the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office to take over any investigation into the matter.<\/p>\n
“The only comment I can provide at this time is that on June 3, 2026, I received a referral from Sheriff Mark McAndrew requesting a criminal investigation,” Gallagher said in a statement.<\/p>\n
After reviewing the referral, Gallagher said he formally requested that the Attorney General’s Office assume responsibility for any investigation.<\/p>\n
“I made that decision out of an abundance of caution,” Gallagher said, noting that the District Attorney’s Office works closely with the Sheriff’s Office on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
Gallagher said sheriff’s deputies assist with courthouse security, prisoner transportation, county SWAT operations, and other law enforcement functions that regularly involve the District Attorney’s Office.<\/p>\n
“Given the ongoing professional relationship between our offices, I believed it was appropriate to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest and have the matter reviewed by an independent agency,” Gallagher said.<\/p>\n
FOX56 has learned the identities of the two deputies involved in the investigation but is not naming them because neither has been charged with a crime.<\/p>\n
The criminal referral marks the latest development in a story first reported by FOX56 earlier this year, when county officials confirmed an internal investigation was underway regarding alleged overtime irregularities within the Sheriff’s Office.<\/p>\n
It is unclear whether the Attorney General’s Office has accepted the referral or whether a criminal investigation has officially begun.<\/p>\n
No charges have been filed, and no further details about the allegations have been released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 A months-long internal investigation into overtime irregularities within the Lackawanna County Sheriff’s Office…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-215749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}