Gloria Porter helped run military operations. But as a union official, she ran a renegade operation to line her pockets. And dues-paying members unwittingly subsidized her. On June 30, Porter, formerly president of National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) Local 2049, was convicted by a federal jury on more than 100 counts of wire fraud and one count each of mail fraud and identity theft in connection with her embezzlement of nearly $135,000 of union funds. NFFE is part of the International Association of Machinists; the local represents various employees at the White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Porter remains free on her own recognizance until sentencing.
Porter, now 64, a resident of Chaparral, N.M., was an Army work order clerk at White Sands during 1996-2008. She also was very active in her union. In addition to being president of NFFE Local 2049, she also served as secretary-treasurer of Army Materiel Command District Council 1 and NFFE national vice president. But for the final three years of that period she enriched herself out of union coffers. A federal grand jury last December indicted her on 107 separate counts, 105 of them for wire fraud. Prosecutors had charged that Porter, beginning on or about December 20, 2005 and continuing through September 2, 2008 defrauded the local out of $134,026. She allegedly wrote checks from a union checking account to make unauthorized purchases and also illegally used her union debit card to make cash withdrawals and purchases. She was convicted for fraudulently converting $124,756 in union funds.
To conceal her thefts, Porter forged the signature of the AMC president on a Department of Labor (DOL) financial disclosure form. That eventually triggered an investigation. The indictment and jury conviction follow a joint probe by DOL’s Office of Labor-Management Standards, the FBI and the Las Cruces Police Department.