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FORMER ST.LOUIS CARPENTERS CHIEF HAS DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ISSUES,FILING REVEALS
JACOB BAKER
ST. LOUIS — The U.S. Department of Justice is looking at the situation surrounding the dissolution of the once-powerful St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters District Council and its ousted chief, Al Bond, a new court record shows.
Bond’s lawyer cited the DOJ interest in his request for more time to respond to a lawsuit against his client and two companies that won a lucrative advertising contract from the St. Louis-based union council.
“This is a complex case involving several areas of additional expertise on various matters pertaining to the Complaint, including, but not limited to, recent Department of Justice issues that as a matter-of-fact affect additional considerations as to the preparation of the pleadings going forward on this case,” Bond lawyer John Goffstein wrote in the Friday court filing.
The request also suggests Bond is contacting defense firms in addition to Goffstein’s firm to represent him.
“Only within the last few days it has been necessary for Defendant, through counsel, to contact and review several defense and other firms to enter as co-counsel in and relation to this action,” the court filing says.
The revelation came after U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Pitlyk denied an initial request for an extension filed Wednesday, ruling Bond must show good cause for the extension. The possible federal investigation was laid out in a second request for an extension from Bond’s lawyer.
Goffstein declined to comment. A DOJ spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Though there’s little additional information, and DOJ officials don’t confirm ongoing investigations, the filing is the strongest indication yet that federal investigators are looking at the circumstances surrounding the September dissolution of the once-powerful St. Louis-based union and Bond’s ouster.
At the national level, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters has been contending with a federal investigation following the 2019 indictment of George Laufenberg, who led the New Jersey Carpenter’s Pension, Annuity, Health and Training/Apprenticeship funds and was a former commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Following Laufenberg’s indictment on charges he embezzled pension funds and helped another person steal via a “low-show” job, a federal grand jury in late 2019 issued subpoenas to other entities tied to the national union.
United Brotherhood of Carpenters President Douglas McCarron ordered the dissolution of the St. Louis-based carpenters council and merged it with the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters, creating the Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council, which is now based in Chicago.
In St. Louis, Bond and the union were powerful players in development and politics, with a sizeable hand in the region’s largely union construction workforce. They also were willing to publicly back candidates and high-profile issues, including the attempts to merge St. Louis and St. Louis County and lease St. Louis Lambert International Airport to a private operator.
UBC officials have been mostly mum on the reasons for the dissolution. Last month, the union finally disclosed that Bond was facing internal union charges for “misappropriation of union funds,” “defrauding” the union and violating its bylaws. Shortly after it dissolved, a Post-Dispatch review of the St. Louis District Council’s regulatory filings also raised questions about some of its accounting policies.
More recently, a March lawsuit from the Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council highlighted two contracts Bond inked with advertising firms Interrail Outdoors LLC and Foxpoint Interactive LLC, both owned by James H. Neumann. The lawsuit alleged Bond in 2020 entered into contracts to pay Interrail $4 million for three electronic billboards, only one of which was ever built. The lawsuit also alleges the price was above market value and that Bond didn’t take the agreement to the St. Louis union’s board until a year later, after $3 million had already been paid.
The lawsuit also said that Bond entered into a 32-year deal with
Foxpoint to sell advertising space at its properties, including one in
Kansas City just across Interstate 70 from Kauffman and Arrowhead
stadiums. The contracts purported to split advertising revenue, with 70%
going to the union for the first seven years, but they allowed Foxpoint
to deduct 15% for brokerage fees as well as costs relating to design or
production, installation, taxes and fees.
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