GREENBELT, Md.: A former section chief at the FBIs Quantico laboratory is facing federal charges, accused of claiming nearly 900 hours of work he didnt do over four years, according to court documents.
John Behun worked for the FBI for more than 28 years until his termination in February 2019. He served as a laboratory division section chief, leading the section that supports human resources, finance, compliance/health and safety programs, according to charging documents.
Last month, Behun was charged in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt with theft of government property in the case first reported Wednesday by WRC-TV. The station reported that Behun has not entered a plea.
An investigation by the Justice Departments Office of the Inspector General found that many times from 2015 to 2018, Behun worked significantly less than he claimed for a total of 876 falsely certified hours, according to charging documents. Investigators reviewed records of Behuns comings and goings at FBI buildings, login records and financial, travel and phone records, including location data, text messages and emails, to determine whether he worked the hours that he claimed.
For example, Behun would claim a full day of work, but there was no evidence that he ever entered FBI office space in Quantico, Virginia, or Washington, D.C.; ever logged into an FBI computer or performed any official business, according to the documents.
Behun wasn’t eligible for telework and didn’t have a flexible work schedule, a government-issued laptop or remote login capabilities to perform his job duties off-site. Also, there was no FBI facility that Behun was authorized to work at in southern Maryland, where he lived and ran a winery, court documents state.
In one instance, Behun claimed an eight hour day on the day after Thanksgiving 2015, but theres no record that he entered FBI buildings or logged on to his FBI computer that day, charging documents state. His phone records show he made and received calls that morning while in Irwin, Pennsylvania, a day after texting his spouse that he was minutes from his folks house.
In October 2017, Behun claimed he worked seven hours and claimed one hour of annual leave, but that morning he emailed his assistant saying he was taking sick leave and would be out all day depending on how he felt, charging documents state. But about 15 minutes later, charging documents state, Behun emailed a vineyard equipment supplier that he hadnt heard from their delivery person and that he had taken off from his day job to be there.
Behun has been released, but is barred from traveling internationally, according to court documents. Neither Behun nor his attorney responded immediately to requests by The Associated Press for comment on the charges.
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