A father and son who spent nearly $25,000 of union money on themselves when they were officers of a Greeley meat workers guild were sentenced Thursday to five years’ probation.
A federal judge ordered Stephen Bush, 29, to pay back $20,385 that he admitted to embezzling and to spend his first six months of probation at home on electronic monitoring.
Ronald Bush, 59, was ordered to pay back $4,457 and an additional assessment of $400.
“I’m deeply disturbed by the criminal conduct in this case,” U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn told Ronald Bush. “It’s certainly no way to run a union and certainly no example to give as a father.”
Ronald Bush was president of the now-disbanded Local 990 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International union. His son was the vice president. They were charged with embezzlement last year, alleged to have used union money to pay for airline tickets, hotel rooms, restaurant meals, televisions and satellite-TV service for themselves.
Both men later pleaded guilty to some of the charges.
Stephen Bush’s sister, Barbara Ann Hayes, a bookkeeper with Local 990, also has pleaded guilty to embezzlement. Prosecutors alleged that she forged checks to steal $27,248 of the union’s money.
Another bookkeeper for the local, Grace Gonzales Maldonado, pleaded guilty last year to embezzlement after the government charged her with stealing $11,206 from the union.
Hayes and Gonzales Maldonado received reduced sentences after cooperating with officials in the investigation.
Staff writer Greg Griffin can be reached at 303-820-1241 or ggriffin@denverpost.com.
