On October 18, Robert Lauermann, former secretary-treasurer of Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) Division 682, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois for filing false financial reports with the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB). He was ordered to pay $5,742.85 in restitution to the Whiting, Ind. (Lake County) union, and pay the court a $500 fine and a $25 special assessment. Lauermann pleaded guilty this past April to the false records charge after being indicted in April 2011 for embezzlement in an amount of more than $10,000. The RRB is based in Chicago, thus explaining the prosecution taking place in federal court there. BLET since the middle of the last decade has been affiliated with the Teamsters. The actions follow an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards.
