A deceased fellow union member was William Davis’ ticket to the good life. It now might be his ticket to prison. On April 6, Davis, former president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1119, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to one count of wire fraud in connection with his theft of funds from the Montrose (Westchester County), N.Y. union. The local represents employees of the VA Hudson Valley Health Care System’s FDR Campus. He had been indicted last October for wire fraud and making false statements in union financial records following a joint investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Office of Inspector General.
William Davis, a resident of Wappingers Falls, N.Y., served as president of his union during roughly January 2008-October 2012. For most of that time, he used a union-issued debit card in the name of a deceased union member to make hundreds of unauthorized retail charges and cash withdrawals, and to purchase at least $30,000 worth of money orders from the local post office. Total theft came to more than $120,000. The deceased individual won’t have to cover the losses, of course, but the union members that Davis once represented will.