Local Electrical Union Rep Allegedly Embezzles $300K

Richard Dressel, a leader of an electricians union based in Paramus, was in court last week for allegedly embezzling more than $300,000 between 2008 and 2012. 

According to a northjersey.com report, assistant Bergen County prosecutor Thomas S. Kearney called this “an abuse of power and an abuse of trust,” in court last Wednesday.

Dressel, of Montvale, allegedly worked with John M. DeBouter, then president of Local 164 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, of Oakland in embezzling the funds. 

The two union officers led a group of trustees to believe that a need for an in-house lunch program to keep trainees from drinking on their lunch breaks and hired Kathleen Libonati, Dressel’s live-in girlfriend, to do the job, according to the report.   

Defense attorneys claimed that the funds Libonati received were simply reimbursement for her expenses in providing lunches for nearly 40 trainees, four days each week. 

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