Monica Morgan seemed to have married well. In the end, she regretted the experience. On July 13, Morgan, widow of the late United Auto Workers Vice President General Holifield, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to 18 months in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release, for tax fraud in the amount of $190,747 related to a much larger scheme involving executives at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) who diverted an estimated $4.5 million from the company’s training center to themselves or certain union officials, including Holifield. She also was ordered to pay full restitution plus a $25,000 fine. Ms. Morgan had pleaded guilty in February following her indictment last July. The actions follow a probe by the FBI, the IRS and the Labor Department.
According to court records, Monica Morgan, now 54, a resident of Harrison Township, Mich., operated two Detroit-based companies, Monica Morgan Photography and Wilson’s Diversified Products, each of which received hundreds of thousands of dollars derived from the ill-gotten gains of her husband, who died of natural causes in 2015. To make matters worse, she failed to pay taxes on this income. Former Chrysler Vice President Al Iacobelli and former Chrysler financial analyst Jerome Durden have admitted making illegal (under the Taft-Hartley Act) payments to Holifield and other union leaders in return for the UAW dropping certain demands during contract talks. Iacobelli and Durden eventually were convicted for their roles in the conspiracy, as were former FCA executive Michael Brown and former UAW officials Virdell King and Keith Mickens. Each is awaiting sentencing. U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said following Ms. Morgan’s sentencing, “The court’s sentence for Morgan vindicates the honest taxpayers who properly report their income and pay their taxes, while sending a strong signal to those who would steal from everyone in the community through tax fraud.”