ELECTRICAL WORKERS (IBEW)
Rhode Island Pension Fund Manager Probed
According to the Securities & Exchange Commission, the pension
manager for Int'l Bhd. of Electrical Workers Local 99 in Providence, R.I.,
is responsible for "the biggest unauthorized diversion of funds" in New
England in the last decade. Todd LaScola, the co-owner of CPA Network Advisors
and owner of CPI Investment Management, has been accused of diverting at
least $6 million from brokerage accounts of CPA to repay IBEW. LaScola
reportedly invested $6.4 million from the pension fund in ultra-speculative
promissory notes sold by a Chicago real estate developer, RBG Management
Services. After the investment collapsed, he diverted money from customer
accounts without permission to cover the loss. Allegedly, IBEW demanded
an immediate return of the $6.4 million and after IBEW got its money back,
it fired LaScola. No criminal charges or civil sanctions have been filed,
but LaScola is still under investigation and his firms have been closed.
[A.P. 3/15/99]
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.
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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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