These stories are all from the last month:
3rd Union Leader on Leave Amid Financial Inquiry
The vice president, Annelle Grajeda, is the third major official of the union to be placed on leave in recent months amid accusations of misspending union money.
The Los Angeles Times reported the union’s Los Angeles local paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies owned by chapter President Tyler Freeman’s wife and mother-in-law and also spent a lot of money at luxury venues such as the Four Seasons Resort and Morton’s Steak House.
Enforcement agency announces 10 criminal convictions and 8 indictments for July 2008. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) today announced its criminal enforcement data for July 2008. During the month, OLMS obtained 10 convictions, eight indictments and court orders of restitution totaling more than $500,000. The office’s totals for fiscal year 2008 (which began on Oct. 1, 2007) now stand at 87 convictions and 112 indictments, with restitution of more than $3 million. Since 2001, OLMS has obtained 889 criminal convictions. The bulk of the cases have involved the embezzlement of union funds.
EDITORIAL: Getting to the bottom of things
Aug 21, 2008 … The trial was hardly under way when former chancellor Roy Johnson was called to the stand to testify. Under oath, he discussed how the head of the Alabama Education Association, Paul Hubbert, and Speaker of the House Seth Hammett came to him to get a job for Schmitz — one of the AEA’s most dependable allies in the House. Johnson testified that the speaker and another legislator found a job and the money to pay for it, and that Schmitz took the job and the money but did no work.
Ex-bookkeeper allegedly embezzled longshore union
LOS ANGELES—An ex-bookkeeper has been indicted for allegedly embezzling $108,000 from the South Los Angeles office of the International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union.
Ex-union secretary in Pa. accused of embezzlement
The Associated Press Article Last Updated: 08/26/2008 03:38:18 PM EDT
PITTSBURGH—Federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh say a western Pennsylvania woman embezzled more than $87,000 from the United Steelworkers of America.
Prosecutors say between June 2006 and January, 42-year-old Donna Simpson of East McKeesport embezzled the money from a bank account for the Steelworkers Organization for Active Retirees. Prosecutors say Simpson was working as a field secretary for the union at the time and wrote 82 unauthorized checks to herself.
Former Union Secretary Convicted Of Embezzling
Two years on probation, with 90 days of those being served under house arrest is the sentence for a Lima woman convicted of taking money from an area union. Amy Cross pleaded guilty to a charge of embezzling from the Utility Workers Local 308 according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
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