Thomas DiSilva received a light sentence for his cooperation in the extortion case against frmr. Intl. Bhd. Of Teamsters Local 25 boss George Cashman, federal authorities announced on July 31. The U.S. Attny. for Mass. called DiSilva’s cooperation “the most significant, if not the single, factor” in forcing Cashman and ex-Local 25 v.p. William Carnes to admit to extortion and embezzlement on April 28.
U.S. Dist. Judge Douglas P. Woodlock sentenced Di Silva to 5 years of probation, the first year to be spent in home confinement with electronic monitoring. The trucking company owner pled guilty on April 18 to helping Cashman defraud the union’s benefit plan by placing 19 non-employees on his payroll, and using the union’s pension fund for extortion by receiving payments from a health care provider in exchange for Cashman and the provider settling a suit over its obligations to Local 25’s pension fund. One of DiSilva’s companies, Hutchinson Industries, agreed to repay $68,000 to the Local 25 pension fund, which suffered when Cashman agreed to settle the suit in exchange for the payment laundered through DiSilva. Hutchinson must also pay a $140,000 fine.
Tenn. Ofc. Mgr. Sentenced for Union Embezzlement
On June 16, Chief U.S. Dist. Judge Robert Allan Edgar (E.D., TN, Reagan) sentenced Christopher Keith to 12 mos. in prison for union embezzlement. The ex-ofc. mgr. for the Chattanooga Bldg. & Construction Trades Council and the Chattanooga Labor Council was also ordered to pay $57,406 in restitution to the two labor organizations. Once he is released to 3 yrs. supervised probation, Keith will have to pay at least 10 percent of his pre-tax wages as part of that restitution. But because the Court held that he does not have the ability to pay interest, that requirement was waived for Keith. He had previously pled guilty on November 22, 2002, to embezzling union funds following an investigation by the Nashville branch of the U.S. Ofc. of Labor Mgmt. Standards. [OLMS, 7/29/03]