Ex-Philly fire department supervisor took bribes to approve $139,000 in bogus overtime, feds say
Marian Farris, a former supervisor in the payroll unit, was also at the center of two separate internal probes conducted by the city.
Federal prosecutors this week charged a former Philadelphia Fire Department supervisor with bribery in connection with what investigators described as a brazen overtime abuse scheme that involved her accepting cash from a colleague in exchange for approving fraudulent time sheets.
Marian Farris, 55, a former supervisor in the department’s payroll unit, faces one felony count of bribery and related theft charges. She was charged Tuesday by information, a process that is typically used when a defendant intends to plead guilty.
Attorneys for Farris, who resigned from the department in March 2025, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the charges.
According to charging papers filed in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Farris accepted multiple payments from a fire department employee that totaled more than $9,000 between 2023 and 2024. In exchange for those payments, prosecutors allege Farris made more than 300 fraudulent entries in the city’s payroll system amounting to more than $139,000 in payments to the employee.
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Some of the overtime claims, according to prosecutors, were logistically impossible. Prosecutors wrote that Farris on 16 occasions credited the employee — identified only as “J.M.” in charging papers — with working 22 to 24 hours of overtime in a single 24-hour period. On other occasions, prosecutors wrote, the employee was credited with working overtime while she was vacationing in Bermuda, Cancun, and Las Vegas.
The Inquirer previously reported that Farris was under federal criminal investigation and that she was at the center of two tangled investigations into alleged misconduct at the fire department.
The city’s Office of the Inspector General led one investigation into the overtime abuse and found that Farris conspired with former paramedic Jacqulyn Murphy to defraud the city by abusing the system.
In a separate probe, the city retained a law firm to examine multiple sexual harassment allegations lodged by Murphy and other women against Anthony Hudgins, a former deputy commissioner and the department’s No. 2 in charge. According to court records, several women, including Murphy, told city investigators that Hudgins made sexual advances, including unwanted hugging and inappropriate comments.
Hudgins claimed that the harassment reports were orchestrated by Murphy only after he discovered the overtime fraud. In January, Hudgins sued the city and the women saying that he was defamed and subjected to a “bad faith” investigation that resulted in a demotion and a $75,000 pay cut.
Inspector General Alexander DeSantis had previously declined to publicly release the results of his investigation, citing an ongoing criminal investigation.
But Hudgins’ attorneys included the report in court filings related to his lawsuit, and the OIG investigation appears to confirm Hudgins’ timeline. The report stated that Hudgins had already conducted an overtime review before a November 2024 discrimination complaint was filed against him.
Those findings also align with a June 2025 report authored by attorneys at Campbell Durrant, the outside law firm that the city retained to investigate the sexual harassment claims. Hudgins’ attorneys included portions of that report in a recent court filing.
In the report, investigators reviewed some of the allegations brought by Murphy and her wife, who was also a paramedic in the Philadelphia Fire Department. The women told investigators that Hudgins had openly discussed his desire to engage in sexual activities with other women.
However, the conclusion of the report described the allegations brought by Murphy and her wife as “unsubstantiated” and lacking corroboration. It said that the “connection between the harassment complaints and the overtime investigation raises serious concerns about motive and credibility.”
The report said that the primary concerns regarding Hudgins were that he “has a habit of hugging employees and enforcing policies that are sometimes unpopular.” The investigators recommended that Hudgins receive a formal warning and be required to undergo harassment training.
The city has previously declined to release the full report, citing personnel matters. A spokesperson for the city did not immediately respond to questions Friday.
In the fall of 2025, shortly after Campbell Durrant completed its report, Hudgins was demoted from his role as a deputy commissioner to deputy fire chief, and he was reassigned to the Incident Safety Office.
Farris has not yet been scheduled to appear in court.
Staff writer Abraham Gutman contributed to this article.
