The UAW had a tasteless corruption problem, which landed quite a lot of people, including former presidents, prison sentences. The feds also announced an oversight deal with them last December, and I allowed myself to think that might be that. Except it wasn’t, with another former UAW official accused of embezzling millions from a local, according to documents unsealed on Wednesday.
Timothy Edmunds was a financial secretary at Local 412 in Warren, Michigan, from 2011 until 2020. Authorities say he spent a lot of his time there brazenly embezzling money to spend on various leisure activities. A criminal complaint against Edmunds that was unsealed Wednesday says he “systematically drained” Local 412's accounts of around $2 million, activity that was apparently uncovered in an audit in September.
Authorities say that Edmunds was a regular at Detroit’s Greektown Casino, where he had “cash buy-ins” of $1 million in play between 2016 and 2020. Edmunds also allegedly used some of the embezzled money to pay for child support; for purchases on Apple.com, and at Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga; and “payments to/at casinos.”
From the criminal complaint:
During the audit, Edmunds provided auditors with, what appeared to be, legitimate bank statements from Cornerstone bank reflecting one of the union’s bona fide accounts. Those statements detailed that the account held over $850,000 in the account. However, a copy of the same statement obtained by the auditors directly from Comerica Cornerstone Bank reflected about $16,000 in the account, suggesting to auditors that the bank statements had been altered...
There is also:
The Auditors note about $255,000 worth of cashier’s checks drawn on the Local union’s savings account between 2015 and 2018. Review of the checks by the auditors show that they bore both the signature of Edmunds and Local 412 president Jerry Witt. When the auditors confronted Witt on the checks, he disavowed knowledge of the checks and told auditors that someone forged his signature on the checks.
Edmunds also had “at least” 10 guns registered to him, and owned the following cars:
- 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT, bought for $74,365
- 2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, bought for $96,419
- 2021 Dodge Durango, bought for $76,491
Edmunds also leased two 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokees. None of Edmunds’ alleged activity was, obviously, very subtle. The Detroit News got comment from his lawyer:
“Our No. 1 priority right now is turning himself in, and we intend to face this,” Edmunds’ lawyer, Joseph Arnone, told The Detroit News. “He is entitled to the presumption of innocence just like anybody else is. We will work through this process.”
You can read the full criminal complaint below.