6th ex-UAW official pleads guilty

Editor's note: Pietrzyk is 74 years old. A government press release, repeated in an earlier version this story, listed an incorrect age. 

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A former high-ranking UAW official in the union's General Motors department pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges of conspiracy and fraud.

Jeffery Pietrzyk, who was an assistant to former UAW-GM Department Vice President Joe Ashton, is the 10th person to plead guilty as a result of an ongoing federal probe into misuse of union funds. Six of the 10 are former UAW officials.

Prosecutors said Pietrzyk conspired with other union officials to take bribes and kickbacks related to vendor contracts for watches, backpacks, jackets and other items. The UAW said it has changed its purchasing procedures since the contracts Pietrzyk was involved with were awarded.

Pietrzyk, 74, must repay $123,000 of the money he took, according to the plea agreement he reached with prosecutors. He is expected to receive 24-27 months in prison or supervised release. Sentencing was scheduled for March 2020.

“Bribes, kickbacks, and money laundering permeated UAW culture for years and years, all at the expense of its membership," IRS Special Agent in Charge Manny Muriel said in the government's statement after the court hearing in U.S. District Court in Ann Arbor, Mich. "Today’s guilty plea is yet another reminder that the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation and its law enforcement partners are dedicated to uncovering and stopping illegal and corrupt business leaders from taking advantage of not only their employees, but also the American taxpayers."

Pietrzyk acknowledged to U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman that he conspired with two other union officials to take money.

“I am guilty, your honor,” he said.

His lawyer, Robert Singer, declined to say whether Pietrzyk was cooperating with the government’s investigation into other union officials. He pleaded guilty because “it was the right thing to do. Jeff wanted to accept responsibility for what he did.”

Singer described Pietrzyk as having a lesser role in the scheme than others who have been charged or may be in the future.

“He was approached by someone who was in power over him and asked to do something,” Singer said, “and he did it.”

In a statement, the UAW said: “The criminal conduct Jeff Pietrzyk has admitted is appalling and goes against everything we stand for as a union. The UAW leadership is committed to acting in the best interest of its members and will continue to focus on achieving the best contracts possible for our members in the coming weeks."

Pietrzyk was co-director of the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources, a training center jointly operated by the union and the automaker. The money taken by him and the officials he admitted to conspiring with came from the training center.

GM and the UAW have agreed to close the training center under the tentative agreement they reached last week. The deal, which is being voted on this week by the more than 46,000 GM workers who have been on strike since mid-September, calls for the center’s building in Detroit to be sold and for GM to be in control of administering and funding future joint training activities.

Pietrzyk was charged in September, days after the UAW's contract with GM expired. The long-simmering scandal also has implicated the union's current president, Gary Jones, and predecessor Dennis Williams, though no charges have been filed against either man.

Ashton, who retired in 2014, also has not been charged with a crime, though The Detroit News has identified him as an unnamed official in documents filed by the Justice Department alleged to have conspired with Pietrzyk.