Two former Maryland police officers have been convicted of plotting together to torch a truck for insurance money, and falsely claim money from their bank accounts had been stolen.
In 2018, Philip James Dupree was a Fairmount Heights police officer, while Mark Ross Johnson was an officer with the Prince George’s County Police Department.
Federal prosecutors said Johnson’s Ford F-450 pickup truck was having mechanical and electrical issues. Dupree claimed to have “discovered” Johnson’s burning truck while on patrol, then filed an impound report containing false statements about the recovery of the vehicle.
After Johnson submitted a claim with his insurance company, investigators for the company determined that Johnson and Dupree had held a 16-minute conversation just before Dupree supposedly spotted the burning vehicle.
Further investigation found the fire had been set in the passenger compartment of the pickup.
In 2019, prosecutors said Dupree, Johnson and others conspired to defraud three financial institutions. They coordinated the withdrawal of money from their banks’ ATMs to claim their money had been stolen.
The officers coordinated submitting police reports to Prince George’s County Police, saying their debit cards had been stolen, then used to withdraw money from ATMs without their permission.
Prosecutors said one report included the name of a non-existent police officer as the preparer.
A federal jury in Greenbelt found each man guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, arson, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and bank fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland. The statutory maximum for all of the crimes is 70 years in prison.
Dupree, who was previously found guilty in 2024 by a federal jury in D.C. of violating the civil rights of a driver when he used excessive force during a 2019 traffic stop, will be sentenced Feb. 19, 2026.
Johnson’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 23, 2026.
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