Federal prosecutors took a 2nd shot at an officer and 2 employees of the Mich. Regional Council of Carpenters on charges that they misused union members’ funds for personal purposes. In his opening trial statement on April 26, Asst. U.S. Attny. Walter Kozar said that as many as a doz. union employees spent regular weekday hrs. working on the new home of fellow union employees David and Sandra Williamson in 1997 and ’98. According to Kozar, some of them were ordered to do so by the head of the council’s chief organizer, William Barnwell.
Sandra Williamson is the secy. to the Exec. Secy.-Treasurer, Ralph Mabry. The Williamsons’ lawyer, Henry Scharg, claimed that the U.S. Attny’s. Ofc. for East. Mich. is attempting to “go after the boss through the boss’s secretary.” Scahrg also asserts that the union members stepped in to do the rough carpentry on the house when a Canadian firm they had recommended failed to perform. Barnwell and the Williamsons were tried on the same charges late last yr., but it ended in a mistrial. [Macomb Daily, 4/27, 4/28, 5/5, 2004]