January 25, 2001 Former Teamsters Boss Carey Indicted
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 7:43 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Former Teamsters President Ron Carey was indicted Thursday on charges of perjury and lying during an investigation into illegal fund-raising by his 1996 re-election campaign.
Federal prosecutors said Carey lied to a grand jury in 1997 and made false statements to an election officer, an investigator and a review board.
The board was investigating allegations that the Carey campaign engaged in illegal efforts to raise money.
If convicted, Carey, 64, of New York, could get up to five years in prison on each of seven counts.
Defense lawyer Reid Weingarten said Carey will ``contest these charges until he is fully vindicated.''
``We're extremely disappointed with this indictment,'' Weingarten said. ``There was never an effort to mislead anybody.''
Carey's 1996 re-election over James P. Hoffa was overturned and he was disqualified from a new election after it was found he participated in the diversion of about $885,000 in union funds to his campaign.
Prosecutors said the funds were paid to four organizations with the understanding that money would be contributed to the effort to re-elect Carey. The union is not permitted to use its money to fund elections for union members.
Carey has said he was unaware of the scheme, but the indictment said he was lying when he denied knowing about Teamsters contributions to the organizations and claimed he could not remember conversations with Teamsters employees and his campaign manager about the contributions.
According to a partial transcript of his grand jury testimony, Carey insisted that no one told him about a deal to trade a Teamsters contribution for a campaign donation.
``No. And if they did, obviously, I would have stopped that dead in its tracks,'' Carey said.
And when he was asked if he was told by anyone in the Teamsters or his campaign that money was being raised illegally, he said: ``No. And if I had, I would have got to the bottom of that and heads would have rolled.''
After his disqualification, Carey took a leave as president, and a federal auditor was named to oversee the finances of the 1.4-million-member Teamsters, the nation's largest private-sector union. Carey was expelled from the union.
William W. Hamilton Jr., the former Teamsters director of governmental affairs, was sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of participating in the scheme. Three consultants to Carey's campaign have pleaded guilty in federal court and await sentencing.
Hoffa, who lost to Carey by less than 4 percentage points, defeated Tom Leedham in a rerun presidential election in 1999.
Hoffa said the Teamsters union supports the decision to indict Carey.
``The members of the Teamsters union have paid a terrible price for the misdeeds of Mr. Carey,'' he said.
Carey was scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 1. [end]