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Prominent Bergen politico ‘Buzzy’ Dressel arrested in union embezzlement scheme

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: The rumors began after influential union leader Richard “Buzzy” Dressel resigned from the board of trustees of both Bergen Community College and the Hackensack University Medical Center Foundation, and this morning federal agents arrested him in connection with a $350,000 embezzlement scheme.

Photo Credit: NJPoliticker.com

Also arrested was John DeBouter, 55, of Oakland, the president of Local 164 the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Paramus. Dressel is the treasurer.

Dressel, 63, of Montvale, was an advisor to, and DeBouter the director of, the local’s Joint Apprentice Training Fund when Dressel gave his then-girlfriend several sources of income with the union and the JATF, an indictment returned by a grand jury in Newark says.

In 2008, it says, Dressel created the “Captive Lunch Program,” requiring the Apprentice Fund to use his girlfriend’s catering services to supply lunches to about 40 apprentice trainees for four days a week.

The gig paid $60,000 a year.

  • UPDATE: Influential Bergen County union leader Richard “Buzzy” Dressel and co-defendant John DeBouter could go to trial as early as Jan. 22, following brief federal court appearances in Newark today. READ MORE….

At the same time, he hired her as a member of his office staff at $1,000 per week, plus 50% fringe benefits for health, pension and annuity funds, the federal indictment alleges.

After eight months, her pay was boosted to $86,000.

In exchange, Kathleen Dressel provided no substantial benefit to the local, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said.

The indictment also charges that in March 2010, Dressel and DeBouter went to the JATF’s Executive Board and demanded repayment to the union of $108,196, representing what the defendants claimed the union mistakenly paid for Mrs. Dressel’s salaries from March 2008 through February 2010.

The two were married in June 2010.

Dressel officially resigned from BCC a little over a month ago, followed nearly two weeks later by his resignation from HUMC as vice-chairman of the foundation board.

He also stepped down from the board of the state Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, a government agency that regulates money paid by casinos to Atlantic City. Dressel, who once served on the NJ Sports and Exposition Authority Board, also nearly ran for the chairmanship of the Bergen County Democratic Committee.

Both Dressel and DeBouter are due in U.S. District Court in Newark this afternoon.

Fishman credited special agents of the Department of Labor, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations, and of the Office of Employee Benefit Security Act (EBSA), with making the case.

The prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury and secured the indictment is Assistant U.S. Attorney V. Grady O’Malley, senior litigation counsel, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Organized Crime/Gangs Unit in Newark.

PHOTO ABOVE: Richard ‘Buzzy’ Dressel (COURTESY: NJPoliticker.com)


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