More than two years after being charged, former Dunbar High School football coach Lawrence Smith pleaded guilty in federal court to charges that he stole $215,000 as a city schools police officer by lying about working overtime.

Smith, 51, an eight-time state championship-winning coach, admitted that in his role as a school police detective for the district, he routinely claimed to be providing security at COVID-19 testing and food sites or assisting other law enforcement agencies.

Instead, he was at home in Baltimore County, at Dunbar, or on his boat in the Inner Harbor or on vacation, according to his guilty plea filed during a morning hearing at U.S. District Court in downtown Baltimore on Friday.

Smith also admitted at the hearing to lying on his taxes.

The recommended sentencing guidelines call for him to receive about two years in prison, though District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher could sentence him to less or more; a sentencing date was immediately not set.

Smith, who has been out on pretrial release, and his attorney declined to comment.

Smith was suspended without pay after being indicted in September 2023, and he resigned from the school system in January of this year, according to a city schools spokesperson.

The charges at the time against Smith raised questions about how well the city’s public schools district kept track of overtime pay.

Smith, who was in charge monitoring how the school police force doled out overtime for its officers, had himself regularly been one of the highest overtime earners, taking home an extra $94,500 from October 2020 to October 2021. But the investigation found he lied about working more than 3,300 hours for additional pay — more than two-thirds of the time he said he worked — over a span of more than three years.

The investigation was sparked by the Maryland Office of the Inspector General for Education, which reported suspected overtime fraud engaged in by Smith and other officers during the COVID-19 pandemic, records show. Even after word of the FBI investigation surfaced, he was promoted, from detective to corporal.

Federal prosecutors did not charge anyone else in connection with the investigation.

Smith — at the time the only two-time recipient of the Baltimore Ravens’ High School Coach of the Year award — steered the high school team in 2022 to its second straight Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association Class 2A-1A title, which was the Dunbar Poets’ eighth championship under his leadership. He had coached Dunbar to a 61-4 record, second-best in the state, during that time period.

The school’s football success has continued without Smith. In 2023, they won a third championship and carried their 50-game winning streak into the 2024 state championship game, which they lost. They’re 5-0 to start this season.

According to a LinkedIn page and state business records, Smith started an education safety consulting firm last fall, though its website did not appear to be functional Friday.

Banner reporter Liz Bowie contributed to this report.