Richard D’Antuono, Embezzlement & Aggravated ID Theft, Rhode Island 2018

Rhode Island Union Officer Sentenced for Embezzlement

PROVIDENCE, RI – A former union officer has been sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for embezzling nearly $320,000 from union funds. Richard D’Antuono, 42, was the business manager and financial secretary for the Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons International Association Local 40 in Rhode Island.

At sentencing, U.S. District Court Chief Judge William E. Smith also ordered D’Antuono to pay full restitution to the union funds and to serve 3 years supervised release upon completion of his term of incarceration. D’Antuono pleaded guilty on January 18, 2018, to a three-count information charging him with embezzlement from a labor organization, embezzlement from an employee benefit plan, and aggravated identity theft.

The U.S. Sentencing guideline range of imprisonment in this matter is 24-30 months incarceration on the embezzlement charges, plus a consecutive mandatory sentence of 24 months incarceration on the charge of aggravated identity theft. The government recommended a term of imprisonment of 48 months.

D’Antuono’s sentence is announced by United States Attorney Stephen G. Dambruch and Jonathan Russo, District Director, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Labor-Management Standards, Boston-Buffalo District Office.

At the time of his guilty plea, D’Antuono admitted to the Court that for two years, beginning in 2015, he embezzled $319,795 from a union operational account and from an apprentice fund, an employee benefit plan used to finance training programs for apprentice plasterers and masons and for the retraining or refresher training of journeymen union members.

D’Antuono admitted that he made checks out to himself substantially in excess of his salary and a stipend to which he was entitled. In some instances, he had the authorized signatories sign blank checks, which he later used to embezzle funds from the operational account. In other instances, he forged the signature of the authorized signatories on checks. D’Antuono admitted that he also embezzled funds from the Apprenticeship Fund by writing checks payable to the Local 40 operation account and then embezzling the funds in the same manner.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John P. McAdams. The matter was investigated by U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Labor-Management Standards with the assistance of the Office of Inspector General Office of Investigations – Labor Racketeering & Fraud, and the Employee Benefits Security Administration.

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