Posts tagged money laundering
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.
EXCLUSIVE: Congress Asks Union About Blunder That Reportedly Sent About $80 Million Down The Toilet
September 16, 2025 // United Auto Workers (UAW) has not disclosed what happened to $340 million it used to cover strike costs in 2023 while promising to reinvest the funds, the House Education and Workforce Committee told the union in a letter scheduled to be sent Thursday. The committee is requesting documents and information on the alleged blunder, which angry UAW officials claimed cost an estimated $80 million in potential gains, according to a Reuters report cited in the letter. Failing to reinvest the funds may have violated UAW’s fiduciary duty under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), ushered in higher dues, led to lesser strike benefits for members and made them miss out on stock market surges that followed President Donald Trump’s reelection in November, according to the letter.
State employees’ union says NH Department of Labor must reinstate administrative judge
June 4, 2025 // News 9 received more than 1,000 pages as a result of the right-to-know request, but most were blacked out. In March, News 9 reported that the Department of Labor was taking steps to terminate Richard Brown's employment. Brown was an administrative judge who pleaded guilty in 2012 to several charges including organized fraud, money laundering, grand theft and filing false insurance claims, according to court paperwork from Florida.
Former NIH union leader indicted on federal wire fraud charges in Maryland
March 24, 2025 // Goodwin, of Bowie, had criticized the labor practices of Trump’s first administration before she resigned her job and stepped down as the union’s president in 2019. She was quoted in a 2018 news release from the union’s national headquarters as saying the Trump administration “feels it’s above the law” and accusing it of union busting by walking back on certain agreements made during contract negotiations.
Ex-leaders of Jacksonville teachers union plead innocent in fraud case; March trial possible
January 21, 2025 // The women were accused in the indictment of each selling back to the union more than $1.2 million worth of vacation time "they had not accrued and did not earn” between 2013 and 2022 as well as signing bonus checks for each other that weren’t shown to the 6,500-member union’s board.
Teacher’s Union Accused Of Laundering $1.5 Million To Bankroll Josh Shapiro’s Campaign
July 25, 2024 // The Freedom Foundation filed three complaints that allege the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) illegally laundered and sent $1.5 million to fund Shapiro’s campaign, according to a press release by Freedom Foundation. The complaints were filed with various parties in Pennsylvania, including the FBI and IRS, as Shapiro has emerged as a contender to become Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. “PSEA’s scheme to secretly launder nearly $1.5 million in members’ dues through the Democratic Governors Association to support Josh Shapiro’s 2022 candidacy appears to have violated both an array of Pennsylvania laws and the Internal Revenue Code,” Freedom Foundation Director of Research and Government Affairs Maxford Nelsen said in the press release.
Mob boss sentenced for shaking down Queens-based construction union: Feds
February 29, 2024 // In one consensually recorded conversation, Ricciardo threatened to kill the senior union official, stating that the official would continue to obey him because he knew Ricciardo would “put him in the ground right in front of his wife and kids, right in front of his F**king house, you laugh all you want pal, I’m not afraid to go to jail, let me tell you something, to prove a point? I would f**king shoot him right in front of his wife and kids, call the police, f**k it, let me go, how long you think I’m gonna last anyway?” Ricciardo also worked with Bonanno crime family soldier John Ragano, another resident of Franklin Square also known as “Bazoo” and the “Maniac,” in a scheme to issue fraudulent workplace safety training certifications from two occupational safety schools Ragano purported to operate on Long Island. John Glover and Domenick Ricciardo
Ex-Illinois lawmaker abruptly pleads guilty to fraud and money laundering, halting federal trial
February 16, 2024 // A state senator from 2011 to 2019, McCann formed the Conservative Party of Illinois to campaign for governor in 2018. A criminal indictment in 2021 outlined numerous schemes McCann employed to convert contributions from his campaign committees to buy vehicles, pay an overdue loan, two mortgages, credit card bills and fund a family vacation, entertainment and other purchases. For his unsuccessful run for governor, he collected more than $3 million dollars from Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers alone. Despite being questioned four times by FBI and IRS agents in summer 2018 about alleged improper spending, he tore through $340,000 in leftover campaign funds for personal expenses in the year after the election.
Despite arrest, corruption charge, Miami police union still all in on Diaz de la Portilla
October 19, 2023 // A month after Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla was arrested on charges of trading a vote for hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations and gifts, it hasn’t cost him the support of Miami’s men and women in blue. In June, Miami’s Fraternal Order of Police announced it was putting its considerable political heft behind Diaz de la Portilla, a former state representative who was once chosen politician of the year by the union. And Monday — a month after Diaz de la Portilla’s Sept. 14 arrest — the union’s president made it clear that as far as he was concerned, nothing had changed. “There are two kinds of people that are always presumed guilty before innocent, cops and politicians,” said FOP President Felix Del Rosario.