On July 28, Raul Mascote, former secretary-treasurer of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 2458, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to 30 months in prison and two years of supervised release for embezzling $62,263 in funds from the Minooka (near Joliet), Ill.-based union, a sum for which he since has made restitution. In addition, he was ordered to pay $510,973 in restitution and a $100 special assessment. He had pleaded guilty in April after admitting that he had stolen, or otherwise converted to his own use without authorization, $510,973 of U.S. government-owned machine parts, Tungsten steel and copper. The $500,000-plus sum had not been reflected in the original July 2015 charge. The actions follow a joint investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards and the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Inspector General.
