On May 12, Patrick James Brennan, former business manager and secretary treasurer of International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 711, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey to three counts of embezzlement of nearly $25,000 in funds and other things of value from the Egg Harbor Township (near Atlantic City) union. He used the district council credit card to make $4,862.12 in unauthorized charges; converted to his own use a union-owned vehicle worth about $11,000, and issued himself unauthorized holiday bonuses between December 2004 and December 2006 totaling $8,652. The guilty plea follows a probe by the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards.
