Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Civil Suit Suggests $130K Embezzlement From Massachusetts Municipal Police Union Benefits Fund

From the Boston Globe on 3/4/14:

A recently retired Hull police officer has sued the town’s police chief and several other high-ranking officers, saying they embezzled union funds and charitable contributions for meals in expensive restaurants and drink tabs at bars and adult entertainment clubs.

In the complaint, Richard McKenna, who retired in December after 28 years on the force, said he filed the suit after he did not receive supplemental retirement benefits owed to him by the union. The union president, Scott Saunders, later told him that $130,000 was missing from the fund, which was virtually empty, and there were no financial records, according to the suit.

The civil suit, filed on behalf of all union members to recover the allegedly lost funds, includes testimony from Saunders saying he contacted the state attorney general’s office in December about the missing money. The attorney general’s office would not confirm or deny that it is investigating the matter.

Police Chief Richard Billings said Monday that he had not been a union member since 2004, when he became chief, and has had nothing to do with the union’s finances since then. He was aware that Saunders had reported the missing money to authorities and said he was eager to learn the outcome of any investigation.
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Read the whole story here.

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