Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The Montgomery County Council Audit Committee met on October 23, 2026, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. to review two reports from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) regarding alleged misconduct by a Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) executive and an employee of the Office of the County Attorney. The committee heard presentations from OIG Inspector General Megan Lamarzy, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Faribaksiri, Acting Police Chief Darren Frank, and County Attorney Marcos, followed by discussion and questions from councilmembers.
Pretty straightforward. There's summaries of each memo of investigation. And then so you see that on pages two, pages three, and then pages four and five are the chief administrative officers' responses. So thank you very much. Ms. Lamarcy, would you like to uh present your reports? Absolutely. Thank you. Good afternoon. I've been asked to bring forward two recent reports from the Office of the Inspector General. The first involved an employee at the Office of the County Attorney, and the second involved an executive from the police department. The first investigation centered around an office of the county attorney employee. We received a number of complaints on our hotline. Those included that the employee had engaged in travel outside the scope of their duties, that they had instructed a high-level executive in the police department to use a secure messaging app to evade and avoid requirements under the Maryland Public Information Act, and that the employee had also been involved in a motor vehicle accident in a county vehicle and was potentially under the influence of alcohol. And the allegation went on to say that they believed that someone at the police department had quote unquote made it disappear. So we opened an investigation and we reviewed the work travel for about three years of the employee and determined that the travel appeared to be within the scope of their duties, that they had received appropriate approvals. We did note that not all the trips had been documented in the e-travel system, which is honestly a persistent problem in the county that I know the deputy CAO is trying to work through a lot. That may have been a confusion because you had an employee who was designated to work primarily in another department, and that department was funding and approving the travel versus the county attorney's office, but that was a thing that we highlighted and flagged just because it is a persistent problem in county government. We examined evidence of the crash report, and we also were uh looked into the allegation about the use of the signal app to circumvent MPIA. We could not substantiate that allegation. But as we did look at the circumstances around the motor vehicle crash, we learned that uh in fact a crash had occurred. Uh, the employee was driving a county vehicle. Um, that police officers had arrived at the scene, they determined that there were no signs of impairment uh from alcohol, that the employee was safe to drive away. Um, and the police department did file the required crash report uh and followed their procedures. However, while we continued to look at this issue, we did identify other violations of county policy. Uh the employee, for example, had not uh received required director approval. The county attorney had not approved that this individual have a vehicle which is required. Um the employee had not been approved for a take-home vehicle. There are rules in the county about if you take a vehicle home and you use it for uh personal use uh that is allowed in circumcircumstances. It has to be approved by the CAO, the co uh county administrative uh officer. Um, but those uh approvals had not um been put into place. Uh the employee admitted that they had used the car on a routine basis to travel back and forth between work and for personal errands. Uh they transported family members on occasion, all that was not approved. Um, and lastly, the employee did not report the accident to their supervisor, and the county requires that. We are self-insured, and perhaps Mr. Marcos will talk about that at another point, but it is important that there is a procedure that is followed if there is an accident involving a county vehicle. Um because all of these approvals and protections had not been followed, the the rules exist for reasons, um, that did open up the county to some other risks. Um the county, for example, had no assurance that the employee had a driving driver's license that was active. They didn't do routine checks of driver's license, which is what is done for someone that has a take-home vehicle. Um the county attorney employee had had the car since October of 2024, so this had gone on for some time. Um the employee uh did cooperate during the investigation, resigned during the course of our investigation, but the matter was still referred to uh the CAO's office for any additional actions that needed to be taken. The second investigation that I've been asked to bring forward today regards a number of allegations that were again received on our hotline. Our hotline is an absolute open door to any county employee who feels that they have seen something that's not right or they believe there are allegations of misconduct or fraud, waste and abuse, and they bring them directly to us. We assess everything that comes into the door.