TEAMSTERS
Kentucky Governor Linked to Union Indictments
Kentucky Democratic Gov. Paul Patton’s two top aides and two Teamsters
bosses were indicted on charges of violating campaign finance laws in Patton’s
1995 election. The special grand jury indictments were unsealed Sep. 24
by a Ky. Supreme Court order. The named were: Skipper Martin, Patton’s
chief of staff and 1995 campaign manager; Danny Ross, Patton’s labor liaison
who ran a pro-Patton campaign for the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO between
stints on Patton’s state payroll; Lon Fields, president of Teamsters Local
89 in Louisville, where Ross ran the campaign; and Robert Winstead, secretary-treasurer
of Local 89 and recording secretary of the Teamsters’ state council, through
which the national union paid for Ross’ campaign work. The four’s lawyers
denied their clients broke the law.
Patton has denied wrongdoing, and in an act of defiance, he said that Martin and Ross would keep their state jobs, saying they were “vital to the continued functioning of this administration.” Patton ordered the probe in Mar. 1996 in response to Courier-Journal articles on irregularities in Democrats’ get-out-the-vote efforts and Republican Gov. candidate Larry Forgy’s assertion that Democrats “bought votes all over Kentucky.” [Courier-Journal 9/25-26/98]
In addition to the unions and organizations covered in this Union Corruption Update,readers can look forward to news and information on other corrupt and abusive unions in future editions.
All back issues of the Union Corruption Update can be viewed at NLPC's website (www.nlpc.org). Also available is a union by union index of all Union Corruption Update articles.
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Union Corruption Update is part of NLPC's Organized Labor Accountability Project which is investigating and exposing corruption and extremism in the Teamsters, LIUNA, AFL-CIO and many other union organizations. NLPC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit foundation promoting ethics and accountability in government through research, education and legal action.
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