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No one knows anything. As NLPC exposed last Sunday, a charity with which Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) is deeply involved, can’t account for funds raised for Hurricane Katrina victims. According to a front-page New York Post story today, Meeks claims the money was used “to help displaced evacuees,” but neither he nor anyone else involved with group can or will say how.

The contoversy over Meeks’ group, called New Direction Local Development Corporation, is fuel for the firestorm of surrounding the awarding by New York Governor David Paterson of a lucrative gambling franchise to Aqueduct Entertainment Group (AEG) in which former Rep. Floyd Flake is an “investor.” Days later, Paterson met with Flake to discuss his support for Paterson’s re-election campaign. According to the Post:

Floyd Flake is extremely valuable to AEG because of his political clout in both Queens and New York state," said Ken Boehm, chairman of National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group. "Now he appears to be dangling his support for the governor until AEG's bid is fully approved.

To many of its critics, the National Labor Relations Board might well be renamed the National Organized Labor Relations Board. That's because this ostensibly impartial federal adjudication body frequently has displayed a discernible pro-union tilt. President Obama is primed to push the NLRB further in that direction given that fully three positions on the five-person board are now vacant. Of the nominees who face final confirmation to fill those slots, by far the most controversial is Craig Becker, approved by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions this past Thursday by a 13-10 margin. As associate general counsel to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO, and as a well-published law professor, Becker has amassed a substantial track record of union partisanship.

The scandal-ridden Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, needs money. And more than ever it's counting on the federal government to deliver it. A December 11 ruling by a federal judge in New York overturning a funding ban in the current budget may well reopen the floodgates. Ironically, it's the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that stands in the way. On December 16, the department filed a memorandum opposing the New Orleans-based nationwide radical nonprofit "anti-poverty" network's claim that it had been unjustly singled out for a funding cutoff for Fiscal Year 2010. In other words, the government, for a change, was protecting taxpayer interests. Whether those interests prevail in court depends on interpretations of the Constitution's ban on bills of attainder and its protection of due process and freedom of association.

Well, it didn’t take long. Danny Hakim of the New York Times reports today:

Three days after awarding a lucrative state contract to a company connected to the Rev. Floyd H. Flake, one of New York’s most influential black pastors, Gov. David A. Paterson summoned Mr. Flake to his Harlem office Monday morning and sounded him out about his political support.

On Friday, New York state awarded a franchise for video gaming machines at Aqueduct racetrack to something called the Aqueduct Entertainment Group (AEG), which will pay the state hundreds of millions for the opportunity. Making the pitch for AEG was Flake, who while a member of Congress in the nineties, faced serious ethics charges.

Two of Flake’s close associates and protégés are Rep. Gregory Meeks and state Senator Malcolm Smith. As we exposed on Sunday, Meeks and Smith are deeply involved in a nonprofit called the New Direction Local Development Corporation that appears to function as their slush fund.

The mop-up work at Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 continues. This past December, two former officials of the Queens, N.Y.-based school bus drivers union, plus a key associate, were sentenced in Manhattan federal court for their roles in an extortion-and-bribery scheme. On December 14, brothers Nicholas and Paul Maddalone, each an ex-local board member, were sentenced to 10 months in prison and two years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit extortion to obtain bribes. A week earlier, on December 7, Ira Sokol, a former New York City public school bus inspector, was sentenced to two years probation, including six months home confinement, after pleading guilty to bribery conspiracy.

On December 10, Kathleen Fonti, former president of Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE) Local 5030, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to receipt of more than $14,500 in improper loans from the Emerson, N.J.-based union. She then was sentenced to two years supervised probation and fined $1,000. Fonti had been indicted in June. HPAE represents some 11,000 nurses and other health care employees throughout New Jersey. The latest actions follow an investigation by the Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards.

For more than two and a half years Deidra Lucas couldn't stay out of her organization's cookie jar. Her main challenge now will be to stay out of prison. Lucas, formerly president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 100 in Pontiac, Mich., was indicted a month and a half ago by a Detroit federal grand jury on four counts of embezzling nearly $40,000 in union funds. The local represented workers at the former (city-owned) North Oakland Medical Center, since 2008 having operated as Doctors' Hospital of Michigan, a privately-owned entity.

On December 8, Thomas Jon Witham, former financial secretary of International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 106-D, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa to 21 months in prison for embezzling $52,037.19 from the Mason City union during the period September 2002-August 2006. He had pleaded guilty in September. The sentencing follows a probe by the U.S. Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards.

On December 4, Christine Throckmorton, formerly office secretary/bookkeeper for Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 57, pled guilty in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania to embezzling $9,674.95 in funds from the Pittsburgh union. The guilty plea follows an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards.

Sid Mannetti was president of his hospital workers union for about two years. He might wind up spending at least that length of time in federal prison. On Monday, January 25, Mannetti was charged in Seattle federal court with one count of embezzling more than $50,000 from American Federation of Government Employees Local 1170, which represents about 140 workers at Pacific Medical Centers in the Seattle area. Prosecutors allege that Mannetti, who served as local president during 2006-08, made unauthorized use of a union credit card to cover personal expenses. Neither the union nor Mannetti's attorney were available for comment.