Union Leader Arrested - Racketeering

Surprise, surprise, the chairman of the "William Jefferson Clinton Democratic Club of Queens"!!



Union Leader Arrested on Racketeering Charges

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/nyregion/17cnd-labor.html?hp&ex=1161144000&en=fcafa96c8886dfd5&ei=5094&partner=homepage

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: October 17, 2006
A seven-term assemblyman and labor leader who was credited with revitalizing the nation's biggest municipal labor council was arrested on federal racketeering charges today and accused of stealing more than $2 million in union and public money.

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Text of the Indictment
(pdf) The indictment charges the union leader, Brian McLaughlin, with a pattern of thefts over the last decade, including siphoning $95,000 from bank accounts for a Little League for the children of union members; installing a relative to head a commission on the dignity of immigrants, then collecting the relative's salary; and using union members to walk his dog, hang his Christmas lights and renovate his $760,000 home on Long Island.

Michael Garcia, the United States attorney for Manhattan, characterized the pattern of thefts as "stunning in its breadth and scope" at a news conference today. "This case lends a new meaning to the term, ?'hand in the till,' " Mr. Garcia said. "It is a case about greed."

Mr. McLaughlin faces up to 500 years in prison if convicted of 44 counts in the 180-page indictment, including fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, the use of phantom employees and receiving cash and other bribes from companies that employed union members.

"His Midas touch turned everything into gold," said Andrew Arena, special agent in charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The indictment alleges that Mr. McLaughlin used members of his electrical union, while they were on the union clock, to perform personal tasks for him, like installing and removing appliances, painting, changing light bulbs, hanging picture frames, shoveling snow, hanging Christmas lights, fixing plumbing, removing garbage, changing locks and cleaning out a barn.

The thefts were not limited to his position as labor council president, officials said.

The indictment charges that, as founding member and district leader of the William Jefferson Clinton Democratic Club of Queens, a nonprofit club that raised money to support candidates for public office, Mr. McLaughlin misappropriated more than $19,000 for personal expenses, like the rent at his Albany home, and to install a wide-screen plasma television at the home of "a person with whom he maintained a personal relationship."

He is also accused of using more than $330,000 from his political campaign committee to pay for personal expenses, including bills for his son's wedding, renovating his home in Nissequogue, N.Y., paying his country club initiation fee and house cleaning.

Noting that the real work of Mr. McLaughlin's union, Division J of Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, was to install and maintain street lights and traffic signals in New York City, Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the city's Department of Investigation, which also participated in the investigation of the union leader, suggested that the public might now be able to look at street lights without cringing.

"You can be assured," she said, that the people who are supposed to be installing street lights, are "no longer mucking stalls or shoveling snow on Mr. McLaughlin's property."