On January 28, James Charleston, former president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 2107, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to one count of mail fraud. The union is based in North Chicago (Lake County), Ill., and represents employees of that city’s VA Medical Center. Charleston originally had been indicted in July 2012, along with local officials Jacquelyn Pugh-Rodgers and Mary Craigen, with one count of embezzlement and two counts of mail fraud. In August 2013, he was charged in a superseding indictment with four counts of mail fraud and one count of theft of government property. Pugh-Rodgers already had pleaded guilty last March, and was sentenced in July for mail fraud in an amount of more than $35,000. The actions follow an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards.
