Washington union boss’s conviction for ’7-year orgy of greed’ upheld

Washington union boss’s conviction for ’7-year orgy of greed’ upheld - EAGnews.org powered by Education Action Group Foundation, Inc.:

WASHINGTON, D.C.  – A former Washington union official convicted for his role in “a seven-year orgy of greed” for helping to embezzle money from teachers recently lost his appeal.

James Baxter filed a motion to vacate his 2005 conviction for conspiring to with other union officials to siphon millions from the Washington Teachers Union between 1995 and 2002. Baxter, the former union treasurer, was indicted by a grand jury in 2003 along with the WTU office manager Gwendolyn Hemphill and former accountant James Goosby, according to Law 360.

The union employees worked with former WTU president Barbara Bullock to steal millions of dollars in teacher dues dollars to purchase lavish personal items and other extravagancies.

“The alleged scheme involved charging thousands of dollars in personal items to WTU credit cards and writing checks to a shell corporation created by Hemphill’s son-in-law, among other methods, the government alleged,” Law 360 reports.

“In addition, prosecutors said Baxter wrote himself checks from a union account for supposed pension payments, and used stolen funds to purchase personal items including $19,660 in Washington Wizards basketball tickets.”