A Wisconsin court has sentenced a former Wisconsin union president who embezzled $219,000 from an employee benefit plan to eight months of home confinement.
George J. Bindas, the former president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1295, was sentenced to home confinement for 240 consecutive days and two years of probation, a recent news release from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) said. He was also ordered to pay a $200 special assessment and $219,000 in restitution to the union and its employee benefit plan.
The investigation was carried out by the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards and the Employee Benefits Security Administration.
“Unions play an important part in the modern American economy and actions like those of George Bindas unfairly erode trust in those unions and the important work they do,” Daniel LaFond, regional director of the Office of Labor-Management Standards in Milwaukee, said in the release.
DOL officials commented on the charges as well as their determination to deal with any similar incidents in the future.
“George Bindas’ egregious violations of the law breached the trust the members of the Milwaukee Grain Trimmers placed in him as their union’s president," Jeffrey Monhart, regional director of the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration in Chicago, said in the release. “The U.S. Department of Labor is determined to investigate alleged misconduct and theft of employees’ hard-earned benefits, incentives and union dues. When violations are found, those responsible will be held accountable for the harm they have done.”
