Ex-Treasurer of West Virginia Teachers Union Sentenced for Fraud

On October 2, Cathy Byers, former treasurer of American Federation of Teachers Local 6540, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia to eight months of home confinement and five years of supervised release for wire fraud in the sum of roughly $22,000 from the Ronceverte (Greenbrier County), W.Va.-based union. She also was ordered to pay a $100 special assessment on top of the restitution she already has paid. Byers had pleaded guilty in June to one count of wire fraud following an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards and Office of Inspector General.