Fake Account report printed in the Overture
Greetings Local 47 Colleagues!,
The report given at the July meeting has been printed in the August Overture and should still be on the website. While it’s a long read we suggest you take a look.
The highlights?
1)The Creator of the fake e-mail account was the ex-office manager, who happened to have been later fired when it came to light that he was a felon who should have never worked at OUR local to begin with.
2)The Account was paid for by President Espinosa’s UNION business credit card.
3)During the ex-office manager’s interview with Local Counsel Lewis Levy, he said that PRESIDENT ESPINOSA had authorized the creation of that e-mail account.
4)President Espinosa denied it..
WHY BRING THIS UP NOW?
Initally, three days after the ex-office manager was fired, he was sited without security escort after hours with President Espinosa removing boxes from the former Office Manager’s office. When asked about it later, the President said they were just removing the fired employees’ personal belongings. Never mind that those employees who’d been fired by the ex-office manager were not allowed in the building without security escort, the ex-office manager had NO escort with him. Still, the reasoning was plausible.
THE PROBLEM?
We kept getting reports of the ex-office manager continuing to hang around the Local during AND after hours. Normally in or near the office of the President. Most recently the ex-office manager was seen after hours (7PM) on Wednesday, September 6th, heading toward the hallway that contains the offices of the president, vice-president and various other offices, MONTHS after being fired.
SO WHAT?
The ex-office manager misused, some would say committed a form of fraud, with President Espinosa’s credit card and then tried to say the President had authorized it, impuning the president’s integrity and basically saying, “I was only following orders, President Espinosa’s orders”.
Would you want to have anything to do with someone who tried to implicate you in a formal misuse of Union property and possible fraud? Someone who had mislead you into employing them, then abusing their position and union resources to try to discredit another member for bringing those abuses to light?
Most people would want nothing to do with someone who committed such a betrayal, much less the person betrayed, yet the ex-office manager has been repeatedly been observed near or entering the Presidents’ office in the months since the investigation.
Makes you wonder if there WAS a betrayal, doesn’t it? It certainly speaks to the character of the President, IF, and we DO SAY IF, there was no betrayal and the ex-office manager WAS in fact authorized by the President to misuse union resources for reprisals.
——
SPEAKING OF UNION CREDIT CARD USE…..
President Espinosa recently took part in a sub-committee studying Credit Card Use by the AFM President, Vice-President from Canada and the Secretary Treasurer.
They were empowered to come back with recommendations related to air travel, meal, alcoholic beverage expenses, use of Federation credit for personal expenses among other topics.
The three Officers who made up the sub-committee were:
Ray Hair, Chairperson and president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Professional Musicians Association
Hal Espinosa, President of Local 47 (Los Angeles)
And
David Lennon, is president of Local 802 (New York City).
They didn’t seem to learn much from their research…
•As it widely known throughout the Federation. The executive board and membership of Local 802 have been demanding the resignation of the New York Local 802 President David Lemmon. He was found to have repeatedly misused his federation credit card, up to $10,000 in personal expenses over 3 years, to the point where the Department of Labor and the US Attorney’s office got involved.
Read the whole story here,…
http://concernedmusicians.org/?q=creditcardcharges
An excerpt from the Concerned Musicians of Local 802 website follows:
More recently, On Tuesday, June 6, 2006 the Local 802 Executive Board voted 6 to 4 to request President Lennon’s resignation. The request came after it was discovered that Lennon had taken and cashed two checks totaling $1757.37. The checks were for expense reimbursements from the AFM that should have been turned over to Local 802.
Though President Lennon SAYS the AFM was late in sending re-embursements, members of the board found out later that the re-embursement had taken place more than six months earlier.
You can read the full article at
http://concernedmusicians.org/?q=resign
•RAY HAIR
{{{{{ David, didn’t you tell me that this guy was in major trouble, or was that someone else? Who was fired and was looking at Jail time?}}}}}
•HAL ESPINOSA – You’ve already read of President Espinosa’s potential abuses.
Local 47 Colleagues,
As members of this list know, we are not at ALL happy with this administration, and their own conduct has not helped. They have stood by and watched as our employees were harassed, intimidated and many of our longest standing employees were fired without explaination. Did President Espinosa authorize the abuse of Union resources for reprisals? We do not know, but it certainly makes no sense that he would continue a relationship with the very person who accused him of wrongdoing and is still, months later, going to his office.
Can you explain it? There aren’t that many options.
Abuse has been a pattern at many locals, especially and mid and high level positions and it should be incumbent on all of us to do what we can to guarantee that only those of the highest integrity and character get to the highest positions in our Federation.
NEXT —- Half Truths and Myths.
Until next time
THE COMMITTEE FOR A MORE RESPONSIBLE LOCAL 47