Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors have convened a grand jury to investigate at least one former Philadelphia Fire Department official who city investigators say facilitated a brazen overtime abuse scheme, according to court records.<\/p>\n
Evidence of the probe became public in recent weeks as part of a lawsuit filed against the city by Anthony Hudgins,<\/a> a former high-ranking fire official who was demoted after two women at the center of the overtime probe accused him of sexual harassment. He maintains that they only did so in retaliation after he exposed their wrongdoing.<\/p>\n Court documents made public this month include a report drafted by the city\u2019s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which conducted a yearslong investigation into Hudgins\u2019 claims that lower-level employees were abusing overtime. Attorneys for a woman at the center of that probe revealed that she is now the target of a U.S. Department of Justice grand jury, while the other woman she allegedly conspired with suspects she too is under federal criminal investigation, according to court records.<\/p>\n Inspector General Alexander DeSantis previously declined to release the findings of the office\u2019s overtime probe into the fire department, saying the investigation was ongoing. <\/p>\n The report, dated September 2025, details claims of rampant overtime abuse by former paramedic Jacqulyn Murphy that amounted to more than $180,000 in \u201cunjust\u201d compensation through 2023 and 2024, well over her $94,549 annual base salary. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Ex-Philly fire deputy says he was framed for sexual harassment after he exposed fraud \u2014 and that the city is hiding reports that clear him<\/a><\/p>\n Murphy made some of that pay during \u201cimpossible shifts,\u201d investigators wrote. In May 2024, for instance, Murphy clocked 22 hours of overtime while she was vacationing in Cancun. And four months later, she was paid to work 12-hour shifts every day while traveling to Las Vegas to get married, including on her wedding day and the day of her return trip home.<\/p>\n Investigators said that she did not act alone. Supervisor Marian Farris, they wrote, rubber-stamped the overtime approvals and manipulated tax withholding statuses for Murphy and herself. The report cited emails from Murphy\u2019s city account showing she made biweekly $500 payments to someone named \u201cMarian F.\u201d for six months in 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cMurphy and Farris worked together to defraud the City of Philadelphia of thousands of dollars in unearned compensation and other benefits,\u201d the OIG report said. It calls for \u201cheavy administrative and criminal consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n Farris and Murphy did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n In a June 4 letter also included in the court filing, federal prosecutors based in Philadelphia informed Farris that she is the target of a grand jury investigation concerning bribery and wire fraud. The letter did not elaborate on the nature of the investigation.<\/p>\n Attorneys for Farris filed the target letter in the Hudgins case as part of a request to the court to delay discovery proceedings, citing conflicts with the federal investigation.<\/p>\n Murphy has not yet received a target letter, but she expects she will \u201cgiven the findings of the OIG that Ms. Farris and Ms. Murphy worked together to commit fraud,\u201d her attorneys wrote in a filing on Friday.<\/p>\n Farris resigned in March 2025. Her attorney did not respond to a request for comment. In an interview earlier this year after Hudgins initially filed his lawsuit and detailed some of the Inspector General\u2019s findings, Farris denied receiving cash payments<\/a> from Murphy in exchange for manipulating timesheets and said any payments were innocent transactions between friends.<\/p>\n The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania declined to comment. <\/p>\n A spokesperson for the fire department did not comment. <\/p>\n City Solicitor Renee Garcia said in a statement that the city \u201ctakes any allegations of fraud, including overtime fraud, very seriously, including allegations of misconduct that predated this administration.\u201d Some of the allegations involving Murphy date back to 2023. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker<\/a> took office in January 2024.<\/p>\n Garcia declined to comment on \u201cpersonnel matters,\u201d saying only that \u201cif misconduct is found, we take appropriate action to implement any warranted discipline.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Harassment and overtime investigations collide in Philly Fire Department<\/a><\/p>\n The publication of the inspector general\u2019s long-guarded report is the latest twist in a saga that has roiled the fire department for years. It began with what appeared to be dueling probes, as multiple women contended that Hudgins \u2014 who was formerly the fire department\u2019s No. 2 in charge \u2014 engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior in the workplace that included unwanted touching and intimidation tactics, The Inquirer reported in 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n But Hudgins has maintained those complaints were lodged by Murphy, Farris, and other associates only after he uncovered and reported their overtime inconsistencies.<\/p>\n His timeline was confirmed in the OIG report. Investigators wrote that Hudgins conducted an overtime review that predated a discrimination complaint filed in November 2024 by the union that represents firefighters and paramedics. That complaint listed Murphy as an alleged victim and Hudgins as a respondent.<\/p>\n The OIG report does not offer a conclusion related to the sexual harassment complaints.<\/p>\n Hudgins declined to comment through an attorney on Friday.<\/p>\n The city hired the law firm Campbell Durrant to conduct an investigation into the sexual harassment allegations, but that report has not been made public. Hudgins claims in his lawsuit against the city that the firm cleared him of \u201cverbal misconduct\u201d and found that he had \u201chugged co-workers.\u201d<\/p>\n Hudgins was reassigned to work remotely, and then was forced to take a leave of absence.<\/p>\n The inspector general recommended that the city implement several reforms to prevent future overtime abuses, including retraining and rehiring the fire department\u2019s payroll and human resources staff. The office also said the fire department should implement new overtime controls.<\/p>\n Garcia did not respond to specific questions about whether those changes were instituted in the fire department, saying only that \u201cthe administration has implemented significant actions across all city agencies to strengthen its overtime procedures and protocols.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min Federal prosecutors have convened a grand jury to investigate at least one former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[115343,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-274428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-fire-department-overtime-fraud-investigation","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274428","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=274428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}