If Terry Doan had been willing to play by the rules of his predecessors, he probably wouldn’t be in his current predicament. On June 6, Doan, formerly secretary-treasurer and trustee of the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee of Heat & Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 84, was sentenced in Youngstown, Ohio federal court to one year in prison, to be followed by three years of probation, for thefts over a five-year period from the Kent-based union. He also was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $195,446. Doan had been indicted last November, and pleaded guilty this February following an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA).
According to prosecutors, Doan, now in his early 60s, a resident of Deerfield (Portage County), Ohio, back in 2012 used his union positions to rescind a requirement that training fund checks above a certain amount have the signature of two trustees. Once freed from this rule, he proceeded to embezzle an estimated $195,147. In 2017, the Labor Department, suspicious of apparent financial shortfalls, launched a probe of the union, eventually concluding that Doan likely had stolen the money. Upon sentencing, EBSA Regional Director Joe Rivers remarked: “Criminal acts like this directly impact participants in employee benefit plans by compromising their hard-earned benefits and eroding confidence in those chosen to manage their trust.”