Posts tagged mail fraud
Trump Gives Teamsters a Chance to Shed Oversight Meant to Curb Mob Ties
June 25, 2026 // Sean M. O’Brien, re-elected to a second term leading the union, has used a relationship with President Trump to end court-ordered corruption monitoring.
Former Jacksonville teachers union leaders sentenced to prison for $2.6M fraud
February 11, 2026 // A summary from an interview prosecutors and FBI agents had with George in June 2025 said George claimed “it was an open joke in the [DTU] office that Brady did not really have any leave days to sell.” Because George’s job included keeping track of union employees' (not members') leave balances, “when Brady needed money she would say something along the lines of I need to sell some days,” said the summary, which Coolican attached to his sentencing memo. “Brady would tell George how much money she needed after taxes and then George would initiate a payment for the equivalent value of leave days. Brady directed George to do the same for herself.” For example, the summary said that Brady sold $20,000 worth of leave time when she needed roof repairs, and George assumed the two facts were connected.
‘Corrupt union boss’: Federal prosecutors call for 3-year prison sentence for former DTU president
February 8, 2026 // In January 2025, prosecutors announced a variety of fraud charges against Brady and former DTU vice president Ruby George. According to the indictment, Brady and George sold un-earned leave time back to the union, enabling each to pocket more than $1 million. The indictment said the two withheld the activity from the DTU’s auditors by signing each other’s checks, hid the payments from the DTU’s Secretary/Treasurer, and withheld the funds from Florida’s Public Employee Relations Committee (PERC) in required yearly financial statements. Brady was also charged with two counts of money laundering.
PHILADELPHIA: Former City Councilmember Bobby Henon is facing sentencing for a bribery conviction. Here’s what you should know.
March 1, 2023 // A former electrician and the political director of the politically powerful union of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, he was elected to Council in 2011 backed by union money and support. While in office, Henon remained on Local 98′s payroll — at a salary of more than $70,000 per year — in addition to collecting his $140,000 paycheck from the city. At Dougherty’s urging, the jury found, Henon drafted and, in some cases, introduced legislation — aimed at punishing a towing company that had attempted to tow the union leader’s car and at supporting his bid to become head of the Building Trades Council, an umbrella group of the city’s labor unions. He granted Dougherty outsized influence during negotiations over the city’s 15-year franchise agreement with Comcast, a potentially lucrative deal for Local 98′s members. Henon was also convicted of a separate bribery scheme in which he extorted a $5,000 bribe in the form of a campaign contribution from the Communication Workers of America, when the union in 2015 needed his help in an ongoing dispute with Verizon. Among those pledging their support: former Gov. Ed Rendell, AFL-CIO President Pat Eiding, Local 98 spokesperson Frank Keel, former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, City Commissioner Lisa Deeley, and City Councilmembers Mark Squilla and Michael Driscoll. Driscoll was elected to Henon’s Council seat in a special election following his conviction in 2021.
Eight Individuals Charged in Alleged $30 Million Unemployment Benefits Scheme
December 1, 2022 // According to court documents, Tyshion Nautese Hicks, 30, of Vienna, Georgia; Shatara Hubbard, 34, of Warner Robins, Georgia; Torella Wynn, 30, of Cordele, Georgia; Macovian Doston, 29, of Vienna; Kenya Whitehead, 35, of Cordele; A’Darrion Alexander, 27, of Warner Robins; Membrish Brown, 27, of Vienna; and Edith Nate Hicks, 45, of Atlanta, Georgia and others allegedly caused more than 5,000 fraudulent unemployment insurance (UI) claims to be filed with the Georgia Department of Labor (GaDOL), resulting in at least $30 million in stolen benefits meant to assist unemployed individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. To execute the scheme, the defendants and others allegedly created fictitious employers and fabricated lists of purported employees using stolen personally identifiable information (PII) from thousands of identity theft victims and filed fraudulent unemployment insurance claims on the GaDOL website. The defendants allegedly stole PII from a variety of sources, including by paying defendant Edith Nate Hicks, an employee of an Atlanta-area health care and hospital network, to unlawfully obtain patients’ PII from the hospital’s databases. The defendants also allegedly caused the stolen UI funds to be disbursed via prepaid debit cards mailed to addresses of their choice, many of which were in and around Cordele and Vienna.