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Former officer gets 4 years for embezzling from disabled veterans

WHITMAN, Mass. — A former Massachusetts police sergeant has been sentenced to four years in prison for stealing from several disabled veterans whose finances he was appointed to oversee.

Federal prosecutors say 62-year-old Glenn Pearson, of Whitman, used some of the embezzled funds to pay his home mortgage.

Pearson was also sentenced Tuesday to three years of probation, and ordered to pay restitution of more than $250,000 to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and more than $825,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. He pleaded guilty in May to charges including wire fraud and misappropriation by a federal fiduciary.

Prosecutors say Pearson was appointed as a VA fiduciary for eight disabled veterans. He took advantage of that position by misappropriating benefit money out of the accounts of several veterans from 2007 until 2012.