A trial date has been set for a Baltimore City Schools police officer and state champion football coach arrested on charges of overtime fraud and tax violations. But as Lawrence Smith awaits his day in court, there are still unanswered questions surrounding how city tax dollars are being spent.

It’s now been more than a year since Smith was arrested and appeared before a judge inside the U.S. Federal Courthouse in downtown Baltimore.

Smith, a Baltimore City Public Schools police detective and eight-time state champion football coach, is accused of tax violations and using police overtime pay to fraudulently obtain more than $215,000 taxpayer dollars. According to federal court records, his jury trial has been scheduled for May 12, 2025. If convicted, he faces decades in prison.

The indictment alleges what FOX45 News first reported eight months prior to Smith’s September 2023 arrest: Smith was logging police overtime when he appeared to not be working. FOX45 uncovered Facebook Live videos that show Smith driving a boat on the Chesapeake Bay, coaching football or on vacation when his overtime forms said he was working.

As FOX45 investigated Smith’s overtime earnings, more potential issues were uncovered concerning how your tax dollars were being spent. But once Smith was indicted, city school officials stopped answering questions or releasing records — saying they didn’t’ want to compromise the federal investigation. As a result, there are still significant questions that remain unanswered. Among them:

Question 1: If Smith is found guilty, will the supervisors who signed off on his overtime forms also be held accountable?

When a City Schools officer submits an overtime form, it’s approved and signed by multiple supervisors. FOX45 News obtained 857 of Smith’s overtime forms.

Lt. Danaena White signed 659 of Smith’s overtime forms. Lt. Alphonso Small signed 462. Many of those signatures were for overtime Smith claimed to work at COVID sites in the city during the pandemic.

In analyzing Smith’s overtime forms, FOX45 found stretches of time where he claimed to be working on average nearly 13 hours a day, seven days a week, for 42 straight days. Did those hours raise any red flags at North Avenue? Had city school officials looked at Smith’s Facebook page, they would have seen many instances where he claimed to be working when it appears he was not.

Question 2: What happened to the nearly $500,000 taxpayer dollars paid to city school police officers during the COVID pandemic that was never reimbursed by the city?

FOX45 News last year obtained a list of police overtime reimbursements that city school officials filed with Baltimore City. From July 2020 to July 2021, City school police officers worked a total of $481,452 in overtime that was never reimbursed. The school system paid the officers for the overtime, but the city never paid North Avenue back.

Last year, FOX45 tried to get answers from Mayor Brandon Scott who said the district never submitted the reimbursement.

“Have you talked to the school system about this? Because they are saying they put in reimbursement,” FOX45 asked during a 2023 press conference with the mayor.

“I’m going to say what I said you to, one more time. If we receive it, we’ll pay it,” responded Mayor Scott.

In October 2023, Project Baltimore also questioned City Schools.

When asked that same year why $500,000 in police overtime had not been reimbursed to the school system, North Avenue representatives wouldn’t answer the questions. And now a year later, Project Baltimore still hasn’t received an answer, because, according to the district, it does not want to compromise the federal investigation into Lawrence Smith.

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