Local labor leader indicted on embezzlement charges

Associated Press
Thursday, January 17, 2002

Local Teamsters boss George Cashman was named today in an indictment charging him with embezzlement in a scheme to give union health benefits to 19 people who did not work at his Local 25.

Cashman, who is a member of the Massachusetts Port Authority board of directors, was named along with seven other people in a 179-count indictment, said Samantha Martin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Boston.

Cashman is accused of making non-employees of Local 25 eligible for the health care benefits reserved for employees, Martin said. She declined to provide more details.

Altogether, four indictments related to the alleged scheme were unsealed Thursday.

Cashman did not immediately return a phone message left at his office. He did not attend Thursday's Massport board meeting.

A hearing was scheduled for Thursday afternoon before a U.S. judge magistrate in Boston federal court.

Cashman, a third-generation Teamster, was elected president of Local 25 in 1991 and reelected in 1994 and 1997. He had close ties to former Gov. William Weld, who appointed him to the Massport board, and Weld's successor, Paul Cellucci.

Weld, who is now an investment banker in New York, did not immediately return a message left at his office. Cellucci, who is now U.S. ambassador to Canada, did not immediately return a message left with an embassy spokesman.

Local 25 members had been under investigation by a federal grand jury because of allegations they extorted makers of such films as ``The Perfect Storm'' and ``The Cider House Rules'' during filming in New England.

Local 25 handles all negotiations with studios and independent filmmakers who want to shoot movies in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Cashman acknowledged the probe in July 2000. Asked if he was a target of the probe, he said: ``Absolutely not. If I am, no one has told me.''

The federal investigation turned Massachusetts into a ``celluloid pariah'' among movie producers leery of filming in Massachusetts because of the union's involvement, retired Superior Court Judge Robert Barton said in a February 2001 report.

Copyright 2001 Associated Press.
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