On June 3, Joan Dutton, former president of United Steelworkers Local 2801, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to one count of concealment and destruction of financial records of the Signal Hill-based union in connection with thefts in the amount of nearly $16,000. She then was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay a $500 fine and a $25 special assessment. Eight days later, on June 11, her co-defendant, local secretary-treasurer Tatia Clark, pleaded guilty to the same offenses, and received the same sentence. The pair allegedly had removed the records back in 2010 after the union announced a pending audit. In July 2016 they were charged in a four-count indictment. The actions follow a probe by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards.
