GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES (AFSCME)
First Guilty Plea in New York Vote Scam
Manhattan Dist. Atty Robert M. Morgenthau won his first guilty plea
in a vote-rigging scam involving the Am. Fed. of State, County & Municipal
Employee's scandal-ridden Dist. Council 37. The vote was on DC37's 1996
contract with N.Y. City. Mark Shaplo, a top associate to ex-DC37 boss Stanley
Hill, implicated Mar. 24 himself, two other Hill associates and AFSCME
Int'l Vice-President Albert A. Diop. But, Shaplo didn't implicate Hill.
Reportedly, Shaplo said the scheme worked by bosses 1) printing thousands
of extra blank ballots, 2) marking them to show approval of the contract,
3) mixing the fake ballots with authentic ones, helping to ensure approval
of the contract.
Shaplo also pled guilty yesterday to receiving more than $50,000 in kickbacks from the sale of hundreds of holiday turkeys each year at inflated prices to DC37 Local 1251. Shaplo faces six years in prison and must repay the union $80,000. Morgenthau also announced the unsealing of Local 1251 boss Bessie Jamison's Dec. guilty plea. Jamison admitted to receiving kickbacks for deliberately paying inflated prices for the roughly 1,000 turkeys her local bought for members each year.
Morgenthau's office implied that more indictments or guilty pleas are coming soon. Morgenthau said, "We will continue the investigation until we have rooted out every vestige of corruption in DC37..." [N.Y. Times 3/25/99]
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.
If you have story ideas or suggestions for future editions of Union Corruption Update, please email NLPC at nlpc@nlpc.org. Thank you.
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.
Union Corruption Update Article Index
Organized Labor Accountability Project