Kingston man charged in union fraud case

A Kingston man who works for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection is facing federal charges in connection with a police union fraud case, and he could face more than a quartercentury in prison.

Steven Whittick, 50, who is treasurer of the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association, has been accused of obstructing the fraud investigation and making false statements to federal agents, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

The Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association is a labor union for New York City law-enforcement officers.

The president of the union, former New York State Trooper Kenneth Wynder Jr., who lives in Stroudsburg, Pa., was charged with one count of wire fraud for allegedly defrauding union members by misappropriating union money, the federal prosecutor’s office said.

Wynder is accused of making hundreds of thousands of dollars of transfers from the union’s annuity fund to the union’s operating account, which he controlled, and then using the money for his own benefit. Prosecutors allege Wynder used the money to pay for a second residence, a car, travel and clothing.

He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Whittick, a DEP police officer, is alleged to have lied repeatedly to federal agents in an effort to obstruct the fraud investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Prosecutors said that after the FBI executed a search warrant at the union offices in September 2019, Whittick obstructed and tried to influence the federal investigation by making false statements about, among other things, cash withdrawals from union bank accounts and the annuity fund.

Whittick allegedly withdrew $16,000 from a union back account and deposited $15,000 into Wynder’s personal account and $1,000 into his own account, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Whittick faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of obstruction of justice and up to five years for each of two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.