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Chris Smith, 48, of the Warren County town of Hope, “will now pay his dues,” Thomas Eicher, executive director of the New Jersey Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, said after a grand jury returned an indictment charging him with theft.
Smith tapped the funds of two unions he led in a “continuous theft scheme” between 2014 and 2019, when Smith was president of both his local Park Police PBA, Local 222, and the State Law Enforcement Union (SLEU), Acting Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said.
“Union members were having dues deducted from their paychecks, thinking their hard-earned money would be used to represent their best interests at the bargaining table,” Platkin said. “Instead, they were unwittingly picking up the tab when the check came to the defendant’s dinner table, at top-notch restaurants where he indulged himself on their dime.”
Smith “exploited men and women who work difficult, dangerous jobs to protect our communities, some of whom were his own coworkers who entrusted him with their money and a position of authority,” Eicher added.
Smith used union bank cards to pay for personal expenses without authorization, the indictment alleges.
These included “outings” in New York, Pennsylvania and Florida, air travel, the bill for his personal Internet service, and meals at upscale restaurants in Philadelphia, New Jersey and at the former 1930s-era speakeasy “21” in midtown Manhattan, authorities said.
Local 222 officers at one point questioned him, but Smith said the expenses were “related to meetings with attorneys, politicians and other influential people who could help the cause of the unions,” a release issued by Platkin’s office says.
Investigators found that “was not the case,” it says, noting that Smith was “often alone or with his wife when the charges were incurred.”
Another time when confronted about the small sum of money in Local 222’s bank account, the release says, Smith “blamed payroll for failing to properly deduct union dues from members’ paychecks.”
“In fact, he had been draining the account through unauthorized expenses,” it says.
Deputy Attorneys General Samantha Thoma and Allora Richey of the Office of Public Integrity and Accountability secured the indictment.
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