MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (AP) - A former police lieutenant who fraudulently altered police records to benefit his girlfriend at the time was sentenced to more than a year in prison.
Former Middletown police lieutenant Richard Gamache was given a five-years sentence Wednesday by a superior court judge, with the first year and a half served in a prison in Cranston, Rhode Island. He will spend the remainder on probation.
Gamache, 52, faced 12 felony charges of intentional access, alteration, damage or destruction of a computer and two misdemeanor counts of giving a false document to an agent, employee or public official.
He was convicted in February on 11 of the felony charges and both misdemeanors, the Newport Daily News reported.
According to an internal police investigation, Gamache improperly used police letterhead to tell the Newport Housing Authority his girlfriend was in imminent danger as a confidential drug informant in order to secure her a housing voucher. Police say she was not an informant.
Police also found that police department records involving the girlfriend were missing or had been altered.
In a statement after the sentencing, Attorney General Peter Neronha told the newspaper, “Police officers, like all public officials, must be held accountable when they abuse their public authority to serve their private interests.”
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