SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA – The former treasurer of a Teamsters Union plead guilty to embezzling from the union and filing a false tax return, federal officials said today.
Fred W. Correll, 79, of Fullerton, the former treasurer of the Fullerton-based International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Graphic Communications Conference, District Council Number 2, has pleaded guilty to two felony counts of embezzlement and filing a false tax return.
Correll, who was the secretary-treasurer of the union since 1970, admitted that he embezzled $10,000 from the union for his personal use, federal officials said.
Correll resigned from the union three years ago.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on August 4 and is facing up to eight years in federal prison and a fine of up to $500,000, officials said.
Correll’s son-in-law, Ryan W. Sherard, the former President of the union, is scheduled to plead guilty to filing a false Labor form on Wednesday.
Sherard, 43, of Fullerton, has agreed to plead guilty to making a false statement in a financial report of a labor union, a misdemeanor offense that carries up to one year in prison.
In his plea agreement, Sherard admits he failed to report money – approximately $9,600 – that he received from the union.
The Orange County Register newspaper reported that a lawsuit filed by the union alleges that the men stole much more than that: at least $1 million.
The union accuses Correll of engaging in “blatant nepotism” by hiring family members, including Sherard after he started dating Correll’s stepdaughter, according to the Register.
The Register stated that the lawsuit also says Correll and Sherard engaged in an “extravagant spending spree” with union money from 2005 to 2011, including hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury hotel stays, lavish lunches, groceries, limousine rides and office staff parties that were essentially family gatherings, the Orange County Register report stated.