GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES (AFSCME)
Indictment Total Reaches 27 in New York's Corrupt DC37
On Jun. 15, Manhattan Dist. Atty. Robert M. Morgenthau indicted nine
more bosses of the Am. Fed. of State, County & Municipal Employees
Dist. Council 37 on union corruption charges, bringing
to the number of bosses indicted in the recent scandal to a shocking 27.
Albert A. Diop, ex-Local 1549 president, was accused of directing an elaborate fraud resulting in the ratification of DC37's 1996 contract with N.Y.C. Martin Lubin, DC37 ex-associate director, was also indicted in the voting scheme. Diop also allegedly stole $1.6 million via various scams: He allegedly spent $270,000 in personal expenses on the union's credit card. He allegedly had the union spend over $500,000 for his penthouse. He allegedly took $817,000 in wrongful "hospitality money." He allegedly used $4,300 in unauthorized union funds for listening devices in DC37 offices after Morgenthau began his probe last year.
Robert Taylor, ex-Local 983 president was indicted on charges of stealing over $50,000. He allegedly received kickbacks by buying members' holiday turkeys and submitting inflated catering invoices. He also allegedly committed vote fraud by in inflating vote counts in his local.
Two ex-Local 1549 vice-presidents: Mary Wilson and Lionel Scott and were indicted for stealing $213,500 and $172,000, respectively. Anthony Sessa, ex-DC37 Quality of Work Life Program director was indicted for taking over $50,000 in kickbacks from a catering firm, named Gee Whiz. Daniel Rivera, ex-Local 1503 president was indicted for stealing over $3,000 by inflating Gee Whiz invoices. Betty Silverstein, ex-Local 372 vice-president pled guilty to taking a kickback of under $200 from Gee Whiz. Andreas Koutsoudakis, Gee Whiz's owner, pled guilty to falsifying invoices to DC37 by inflating costs and kicking back the difference. Robert Crilly, ex-Local 2627 president was indicted in Apr. for stealing over $3,000 by via the holiday turkeys scam. He died May 12. Unless otherwise noted, all these bosses pled not guilty. [N.Y. Times, Newsday 6/15/99]
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 and state-by-state 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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