[North Jersey] Richard "Buzzy" Dressel -- a prominent and influential North Jersey labor leader who served on the boards of the Hackensack University Medical Center Foundation and Bergen Community College -- was juggedYou have the right to remain silent...
Thursday on charges of conspiring to steer more than $350,000 in union funds to his wife.
"Here ya go, babe!"
"What's this?"
"$350,000 in union funds! It's yer birthdy!"
"Why, honey! Youse shouldn'ta!"
Dressel, 63, of Montvale, the business manager and principal officer of Local 164 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, was arrested along with John M. DeBouter, 55, of Oakland, the local's president, after a two-year investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor.
An eight-count indictment charged the two officials with conspiring to embezzle funds from the Paramus-based local, which represents about 2,900 electrical workers in Bergen, Hudson and Essex counties, and its Joint Apprentice Training Fund, for the benefit of Kathleen Libonati, Dressel's second wife, and, indirectly, for Dressel himself.
Libonati, who married Dressel in June 2010, was named as a co-conspirator but was not charged in the indictment, which was returned by a federal grand jury in Newark on Oct. 24 and unsealed after both men were arrested at their homes early Thursday.