Sherell Mitchell was the gambling type. She now wishes she wasn’t. On January 5, Mitchell, formerly secretary-treasurer for Local 86823 of Communications Workers of America, was charged in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri with one count of embezzling in excess of $110,000 from the St. Louis union. She then pleaded guilty. Prosecutors alleged that Mitchell, 45, a resident of St. Louis County, over a more than seven-year period made out local checks to herself and made cash withdrawals from the account. She lost much of the money at a local casino. The actions follow an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards.
