Mendez

BACKGROUND

Mendez was hired by the Department in November 2001. In May 2019, she held the position of Management Analyst. In that position, Mendez was required to work at least eight hours per workday and 40 hours per workweek. If she worked less than eight hours on a given workday, Mendez was required to report her unworked time as vacation or “ ‘comp’ ” time on

1 her employee timecard. On May 9, Mendez’s supervisor, Noelle Vergara, was handling an employment matter that was unrelated to Mendez when she found a discrepancy in Mendez’s time records. While reviewing a recently terminated employee’s “Skype” conversations, Vergara discovered that on March 25, 2019, Mendez went to Costco during her working hours even though she recorded an eight hour workday on her timecard. Vergara discussed the discrepancy on Mendez’s timecard with Assistant Chief Probation Officer Bonnie MacAskill, and then referred the matter for an Internal Affairs investigation. Deputy Chief Probation Officer Christopher Abalos conducted an internal investigation on behalf of the Department. Abalos compared Mendez’s time records for the period from January 27 through June 23, 2019, with Mendez’s other computer…