Former fire union treasurer sentenced to 1 year in prison for fraud
Union files lawsuit seeking in excess of $200K
A former union leader at the Detroit Fire Department from Macomb County was sentenced Tuesday to one year in federal prison for stealing more than $200,000 in union funds, but her legal troubles are far from over.
Verdine Day of Eastpointe was also ordered by federal Judge George Caram Steeh to make $220,043 in restitution to Detroit Fire Fighters Union and serve two years of supervised release.
Investigators said Day, the former union treasurer, spent the cash — including $1,500 intended by the DFFA to be a donation to the NAACP — on international vacations, flights, hotel rooms, cruises, cable TV service, furniture, and visits to national and state parks.
“Day’s embezzlement was particularly egregious because she stole from the first responders in our community,” U.S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison said in a statement.
“We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to root out corruption and fraud involving unions and prosecute union officers who abuse their authority and line their own pockets at the expense of the union’s membership.”
Day’s attorney, William Ford, said she accepts full responsibility for her actions. He said she is a cancer survivor who remains under the care of an oncologist and has other family members who are ill.
“Mrs. Day understands the very serious nature of the charges that she accepted responsibility for, and wishes to take this grave mistake, learn, and move past it,” Ford said in a sentencing memo.
Day, 62, faced up to 30 years and up to a $1 million fine. She pleaded guilty in December in an agreement that called for the U.S. Attorney’s Office not to seek additional charges.
She spent 33 years with the Detroit Fire Department where she worked as a firefighter, engineer, and held other positions before she was elected by her peers to treasurer of the DFFA in November 2015. She was treasurer from December 2015 until her retirement from the DFFA and the fire department in September 2019.
According to the court records, Day obtained about $167,900 illegally during her four-year tenure and spent the money taking trips around the world.
For example, Day used DFFA credit cards as her “own personal credit cards” while she was treasurer and after she retired. In total, she charged approximately $49,116 in personal expenses using DFFA credit cards. Her purchases on DFFA credit cards included flights, hotel rooms, cruises, car insurance premiums, satellite and cable TV service, national and state parks fees, and furniture.
Day used a DFFA union credit card to charge $18,500 for two cruises with Royal Caribbean cruise lines in 2017 and 2019; to pay her bar bill at a casino in Ohio in May
FBI investigators said her scheme involved issuing checks in her name and then changing the name of the payee in the union’s Quickbook; cashing checks which were voided by her in Quickbooks; writing checks made payable to cash; and withdrawing cash from union bank accounts.
The missing money collected from the 1,142 Detroit fire fighters and emergency medical technicians was discovered during an independent audit of the union’s finances in 2020.
In a statement, James Tarasca, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Field Office, said Day had a “duty to safeguard the dues paid by men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect our community.”
Meanwhile, the DFFA has filed a lawsuit in Macomb County Circuit Court for return of the money.
According to her attorney, Day reimbursed the union $20,000 and offered another $90,000 in her personal retirement funds. The union has not accepted the $90,000, he said.
In a September, 2019 bulletin, the DFFA told its members it had learned of Day’s schemes and would them informed of the audit’s outcome.
The statement read in part: “This is a live matter, the seriousness of the matter and the fact that this situation if out of the normal parameters of what the officers of this association are expected to understand, we are allowing and working under the professional recommendations of the DFFA, CPA Firm, and our attorneys advise to control the matter properly as you would expect.”
Attorney Megan Boelstler, of the Royal Oakbased law firm of Legghio & Israel, said the lawsuit is independent of the federal prosecution.
She said the union is seeking $292,500 with interest and taxes, or $877,500 with treble damages.