An employee with the D.C. police department was sentenced Wednesday for illegally giving out personal information on traffic accident victims in exchange for more than $40,000 in cash bribes over a two-year period.
According to a news release, 38-year-old Aaron Willis, of Maryland, worked as a customer service representative for the D.C. police department and in 2015 began trading information for money.
He sold personal information on traffic crash victims to two independent “runners” who would then get in contact with crash victims that needed legal or medical help and connect them with providers. Willis sold these runners traffic accident reports, which had the names and contact information of the victims involved in crashes.
The release said that in 2015, the police department “limited the distribution of these reports” to only those involved in the accidents and their representatives.
Willis sold victims’ information from 2015 to 2017 for $80 a week to one runner and $80 to $200 a week to a different runner.
“Between June and October 2017, alone, Willis accessed approximately traffic accident reports 28,252 times and exported these reports more than 12,206 times,” the release said.
Willis pleaded guilty in October 2018 to one count of bribery of a public official. He was sentenced to 36 months of probation, six months of intermittent jail time and six months of home confinement.
D.C. police said Willis is no longer a member of the department.
