File photo. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8, 2020.
A former section chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is facing a federal criminal charge.
John Behun, who had a high-ranking post at the FBI’s famed Quantico lab and later at agency headquarters, is accused of falsifying his time sheets and bilking taxpayers for nearly 900 hours of compensation for time he didn’t work.
According to federal charging documents, Behun worked at the FBI for nearly 28 years, through 2019, including five years as a senior executive at the agency lab in Quantico, Virginia. The agency calls its Quantico facility “one of the largest and most comprehensive crime labs in the world.” Prosecutors allege Behun would later serve at J. Edgar Hoover headquarters facility before departing the agency in 2019.
According to charging documents, Behun submitted false time sheet information, claiming at least 876 hours in work time that he did not complete. The charging documents said federal investigators reviewed phone records showing Behun was often dozens of miles from work, including several instances in which he was out of state, while on the clock for the FBI. The feds allege Behun did not have telework or flex scheduling privileges.
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Prosecutors, in their court filings, said Behun used his same work phone number for business and personal calls. In charging documents, prosecutors allege Behun made multiple calls from Maryland during work hours, also alleging Behun operated a winery in southern Maryland during his FBI tenure.
In another instance, prosecutors allege Behun was sending a message about his business on a sick day from FBI.
According to the charging document, Behun sent an email to an individual at a company that supplies equipment for vineyards, informing them that he had not heard from their delivery person and that he “took off from [his] day job to be” there.
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The charging document said Behun’s winery is in St. Leonard, Maryland. Calvert County, Maryland, government news releases from 2013 about the Perigeaux Vineyard winery in St. Leonard list Behun as owner.
A 2001 report in Government Executive news, listed Behun as a winner of the Arthur Flemming award for federal civil servants. The report said, “John J. Behun's managerial expertise has allowed criminal justice agencies throughout the country to share forensic science and DNA information with ease, aiding more than 2,000 criminal investigations.”
Behun’s defense attorney did not immediately return requests for comment. He’s charged with theft of government property and has not yet entered a plea in his case, according to the federal court docket in Greenbelt, Maryland. Behun is prohibited from any international travel pending future hearings in his case.
A 2015 investigation by the News-4 I-Team showed frequent cases of “time fraud” by federal employees, costing taxpayers nearly $1 million over a three-year span.
