A Juneau man will serve five years probation, including four months of community confinement, for embezzling union funds.
Jonathan H. Smith was sentenced in U.S. District Court on Wednesday. He was also ordered to repay $41,770.47 to the now-defunct Carpenters Local Union 2247.
Smith changed his plea to a single count of embezzlement of union funds in U.S. District Court in Juneau last August.
Local 2247 had about 150-members between June 2006 and May 2012. Smith was elected as an unpaid financial secretary and would deposit union dues into a checking account that used for Local 2247’s basic expenses.
In a plea agreement signed by Smith, he admitted obtaining an ATM debit card to draw funds from that account to pay for alcohol, meals, travel, gambling in Washington state and Las Vegas, and other personal expenditures.
According to court documents, Smith also drew between $66,000 and $93,000 a year as business agent for the Alaska Regional Council of Carpenters.
Local 2247 was created in 1939, but its members were absorbed by Anchorage’s Carpenter Union Local 1281 in May 2013 as part of an effort by United Brotherhood of Carpenters to streamline operations.
