Maryland Woman Sentenced for Paying More than $6,500 in Bribes to Metropolitan Police Department Employee

            WASHINGTON – Michelle Cage, 46, of Temple Hills, Md., was sentenced today to five years of probation, including six months of home confinement, for paying more than $6,500 in bribes to a Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) employee in exchange for personal identifying information of traffic crash victims.

            The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves, Wayne A. Jacobs, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Criminal Division, and Robert J. Contee III, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department.

            Cage pleaded guilty in November 2020, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to one count of bribery of a public official.  She was sentenced by the Honorable Emmett G.  Sullivan.  While on probation, Cage must complete 100 hours of community service.

            According to the government’s evidence, dating back to at least 2012, Cage worked, in return for referral fees, to connect people in need of legal representation or medical services with providers of those services.  In 2017, Cage started MC Referrals and Marketing L.L.C. to provide these referral services. To identify potential clients, Cage obtained from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Traffic Accident Reports, or “PD Form 10s,” which contained the names and contact information of individuals involved in traffic accidents. 

            Beginning in 2015, however, MPD General Order 401.03 limited the distribution of these reports to individuals involved in traffic accidents and their representatives.  Cage admitted that, beginning at that time and continuing into 2017, she paid cash bribes in the amount of $50 to $200 per week to a clerk in MPD’s First District station, to influence the clerk to violate the General Order and provide Cage with the confidential reports, which Cage used to contact and solicit potential clients.  Cage admitted that she paid the clerk at least $6,500 in bribes.

            In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Graves, Special Agent in Charge Jacobs, and Chief Contee commended the work of those who investigated the case from the FBI’s Washington Field Office and MPD’s Internal Affairs Division.  They also acknowledged the work of those who handled the case at the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section and Fraud Section, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Rothstein and Veronica Sanchez.