Ann Marie Shaffer was too clever by a half. On August 7, Shaffer, formerly the dues clerk for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 58, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to one count of embezzling funds from the Detroit-based union in the amount of $101,059. The plea follows a joint investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards and Office of Inspector General.
According to the plea agreement, Shaffer for two years engaged “in a check substitution scheme whereby she received dues remittance checks from employers and set them aside without properly recording them.” After that, “an equal amount of cash was received [she] embezzled the cash by replacing it with the unrecorded checks. As the income from the checks was not properly recorded, the deposit appeared to balance.” Shaffer is scheduled for sentencing later this year.