Ex-Boilermakers chief of staff pleads guilty to federal racketeering conspiracy charge

A key International Brotherhood of Boilermakers employee who served as chief of staff and assistant to the former president pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of racketeering conspiracy, accused of scheming with others to steal from the union.

Tyler Brown, 44, who reported directly to Newton B. Jones, entered the guilty plea at a hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas.

“Did you realize when you did those things that what you were doing was in violation of the law?” U.S. Magistrate Teresa J. James asked Brown.

“Yes, I did,” Brown replied.

Brown, who has a law degree, is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 22. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. Federal law also says that if any person derived financial gain or loss because of the offense, the defendant may be fined twice the amount of that gain or loss.

The felony charge comes a year after the Kansas City, Kansas-based union’s executive council voted to oust Jones as international president, accusing him of misusing union funds for personal gain — including funneling large sums of money to his Ukrainian wife for work she never performed. That led to a monthslong court battle over who controlled the union.

According to the court filing, Brown “and others known and unknown” comprised what prosecutors called “the Boilermakers Union Enterprise” that was engaged in foreign and interstate commerce.

The document says the purposes of the Boilermakers Union Enterprise included “enriching the members and associates of the Boilermakers Union Enterprise through, among other things, theft from a labor organization,” and “preserving and protecting the power and profits of the Boilermakers Union Enterprise through theft from a labor organization.”

Brown was a primary figure within the Boilermakers Union Enterprise, prosecutors allege, as well as an employee and member of the union.

“Beginning in or about January 2013 until in or about October 2022, Defendant Tyler Brown participated in the activities of the Boilermakers Union Enterprise as Executive Director of Industrial Sector Operations, Chief of Staff, and Special Assistant to the International President of the Boilermakers Union,” the court filing says.

From 2018 to 2022, it says, he held all three positions at once and reported directly to Jones.

The filing does not name any co-conspirators.

Brown reported directly to Jones from 2013 through October 2022 and carried out his directives, according to a news release Thursday afternoon from the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Between those dates, Brown was involved in numerous instances of unlawful misappropriation of union funds,” the release said.

Among his actions, it said: “Purchasing merchandise and hundreds of restaurant meals for the International President and his wife in their hometown that were not necessary to conduct union business or benefit the union or its members” and “employing several family members of international officers who received several hundred thousand dollars in salary, reimbursed expenses, unearned vacations, and benefit contributions for minimal or no productive work.”

Other unlawful misappropriations of funds, the release said, involved “paying for dozens of international trips to Europe, Asia, and Australia for large entourages of international officers and employees of the Boilermakers Union, their families, and outside guests whose travel was not necessary to conduct union business or benefit the union or its members.”

Brown occupied a position of trust with the union and its members, the filing says, and was subject to several fiduciary duties, including holding the union’s money and property “solely for the benefit of the organization and its members” and managing, investing and spending the union’s money and property in accordance with its constitution.

Brown also was required to refrain from holding or acquiring any financial or personal interest that conflicted with those of the union and to account for any profit he received in connection with transactions conducted by him or under his direction, the document says.

Brown was charged in federal court on May 16, and Thursday was his initial court appearance. He first pleaded not guilty, then during his arraignment changed his plea to guilty.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Faiza Alhambra told the judge that as part of the plea agreement, the government is recommending that the court sentence Brown to no more than 60 months in prison and impose no fine or restitution. James told Brown that those were recommendations but that the court could depart from them at sentencing.

James released Brown with the conditions that he surrender his passport, remain in the United States and possess no firearms or other weapons.

The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers has about 45,000 members who fabricate and maintain steam boilers and engines for industrial uses in heavy manufacturing, shipbuilding, utility, rail, metal work, and construction industries in the United States and Canada.

The union represents members in collective bargaining with employers throughout the United States and Canada with respect to wages, hours, grievances, and other terms and conditions of employment.

The battle over control of the union erupted when members of its executive council voted June 2, 2023, to remove Jones as the international president, alleging he had misappropriated union funds for his own use.

The executive council found that Jones ordered the union to give Jones’ wife, Kateryna, more than $100,000 plus benefits in back pay “for apparently no union purpose while she was living in the Ukraine” and spent more than $20,000 in union funds for flights to Ukraine “to visit his wife and to go to the home which he owns in the Ukraine.”

Jones and his wife also turned in about $40,000 in receipts for meals for them and other family members when at their home in North Carolina — some “quite lavish and expensive” — with no justification for the expenses, the executive council found.

Jones, who had led the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers since his father retired in 2003, denied any wrongdoing and said the executive council had no authority under the union’s constitution to dismiss him.

The case ended up in federal court after the union filed a civil suit against the executives who ousted Jones, requesting a temporary restraining order and then an injunction to prohibit Jones’ removal. Though the lawsuit was filed by the union, many members said it didn’t represent their feelings and they wanted no part of it.

The union executives fought back, filing a counterclaim against Jones, his wife and the union’s secretary-treasurer, William Creeden. They asked the court for a temporary restraining order followed by an injunction enforcing their decision to remove Jones.

The counterclaim alleged that Jones misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars from the union and its members. But instead of putting a stop to the practice, it said, Creeden authorized the transactions. And because four of the union’s five top executives had participated in the internal disciplinary process that led to Jones’ ouster, they said, Jones had “engaged in a campaign of retaliation” against them.

At a June 20 hearing, Chief Judge Eric F. Melgren ordered a stay of the executive council’s actions to remove Jones and the council’s decision to elect retired international vice president Warren Fairley to replace him.

But Melgren also ordered that any efforts to remove the executive council members from office for expelling Jones be stopped. And he said that Jones’ action to remove them from other appointments, such as committees and trust funds, would be stayed, saying it was clearly done in retaliation for the officers ousting him.

In August, Melgren upheld the June 2 decision by the union’s top executives to remove Jones as president.

The Star investigated the Boilermakers in 2012, finding that Jones and other executives were living the good life. Jones’ salary and business expenses totaled more than $607,000, which put him above the presidents of the biggest unions in the country. The newspaper also found that several of Jones’ family members and relatives of other officers were earning hefty union salaries as well.

A followup story in 2017 found that little had changed. Six-figure salaries were still common for officers and their relatives, as were fine dining, stays in posh hotels and expensive hunting retreats. Cars were still given as parting gifts for retired employees, and hundreds of thousands of dollars continued to be spent on promotional events and videos — all while membership continued its downward spiral and the union’s pension fund struggled to stay afloat. And federal authorities, including the U.S. Department of Labor, had investigated the $28 million Boilermaker Vacation Plan and one of its local lodges.

The union’s 2022 annual report, filed with the Labor Department for the period ending June 30, 2022, showed that Jones’ salary and disbursements for official business totaled $656,179.

Some of his relatives remained on the payroll, including his wife Kateryna, who as “special assistant to the international president” received salary and disbursements of $210,369. Jones’ son, Cullen, made $115,422 as film project coordinator. And Jones’ daughter, Shea, received $113,590 as a graphic artist.