For Sandra King, heading two unions meant double the opportunities to steal. It also meant double the risks of getting caught and punished. On October 19, King, former president of the Federation of Police & Security and the Alliance of Independent Workers, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland to five months in prison, five months of home detention and two years of supervised probation for embezzling funds from the unions, each based in Owings Mills (near Baltimore), Md. She also was ordered to make restitution in the amount of $57,328.01 She had pleaded guilty in July after being charged in June. The actions follow an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards.
The Federation of Police & Security (FOPS) and the Alliance of Independent Workers (AIW) represent private security employees in Washington, D.C. and Bethesda, Md. Sandra King ran each union starting in 2014 for several years, possessing sole authority to sign off on expenditures. According to prosecutors, she used her authority to steal $20,368.76 from FOPS and $30,570.75 from AIW, sums not including more than $6,000 in bank overdraft fees and penalties. She diverted the funds for personal uses such as rent, retail purchases and ATM withdrawals. King can take comfort in the fact that her predecessor, J.C. Stamps, stole nearly $200,000 from these unions and/or related benefit plans. The unions had different names back then, but the behavior looks pretty familiar.