John T. Daley may or may not have been under the influence of anti-depressants during the time he embezzled funds from the union where he served as chief financial officer, the New York State Nurses Association. But in the end what mattered was the fact of the thefts. On January 4, Daley pleaded guilty in Albany County Court to second-degree grand larceny from the New York State Nurses Association, admitting he’d stolen nearly $1.2 million from the 34,000-member union over a four-year period by forging transactions.
The guilty plea follows a joint investigation by the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards and the police department of the Town of Colonie, north of Albany. An indictment followed this past November. Daley initially had stated in his defense that his judgment had been impaired by long-term usage of the antidepressant drug Paxil. But that claim eventually gave way to a guilty plea. As a result, Daley likely will receive substantially less than the maximum 25-year prison sentence. (OLMS, 1/22/07; Albany Times Union, 11/22/06).