KC-based Boilermakers’ ex-counsel testifies on union exec meetings at luxury sites
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- Jason McClitis testified Blake & Uhlig attended executive council meetings.
- He said neither lawyer raised concerns at the Hawaii meeting.
- The forensic firm's work was stopped on May 25, 2023.
The Boilermakers’ former general counsel testified Tuesday that the law firm representing the union for roughly half a century attended International Executive Council meetings held at luxury destinations — and raised no objections about the costs or attendance.
Jason McClitis, of the Blake & Uhlig law firm, took the stand on Day 16 of the federal racketeering conspiracy trial of former Boilermakers International President Newton Jones and three other ex-union employees. The testimony, delivered in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, offered jurors a rare look at the legal oversight — or lack thereof — surrounding union spending decisions at the heart of the government’s case.
Newton Jones’ attorney, Pat McInerney, said that the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers paid Blake & Uhlig more than $9 million in legal fees between 2013 and 2023. McClitis told jurors he believed a Blake & Uhlig representative attended and took minutes at all of the union’s International Executive Council meetings.
McInerney then walked McClitis through a series of executive council meetings, displaying the minutes on a screen for jurors. A June 2009 executive council meeting in Paris. Sessions at the Hilton Marco Island in Florida in 2013 and 2022. A 2019 meeting at the Grand Wailea in Hawaii. The Hawaii minutes showed McClitis was present, alongside then-general counsel Mike Stapp, also of Blake & Uhlig.
At that Hawaii meeting, McInerney asked, did either lawyer raise concerns about the cost of the event or the number of people attending?
McClitis said they did not.
The exchange goes to a central question in the trial: whether the spending now characterized by prosecutors as embezzlement was instead conducted openly, with legal counsel present, and consistent with the union’s constitution. Defense attorneys have argued throughout the nearly four-week trial that the government cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their clients intended to join a criminal racketeering conspiracy.
The attorneys for the four defendants rested their cases on Wednesday afternoon, and closing arguments are expected to take place on Monday.
A September 2022 memo
During her cross-examination of McClitis on Tuesday, prosecutor Faiza Alhambra pressed him about a September 2022 memo written by Mike Stapp and sent to his wife, Kathy Stapp — at the time the Boilermakers’ human resources director — and Timothy Simmons, then an international vice president of the union. McClitis was copied on the memo.
In the memo, Alhambra said, Mike Stapp wrote that any union expense had to be for a legitimate business purpose. She asked McClitis whether it was the legal counsel’s advice that the president of the union had no authority to spend money as he saw fit.
McClitis said yes.
Alhambra noted that the memo also said that under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act — a federal law that regulates internal labor union affairs — unions hold the money solely for the benefit of the organization and its members. Those who violate that law are subject to criminal penalties.
Until that point, Alhambra asked, had anyone ever asked about those issues? McClitis said he didn’t believe so.
The timing of the memo — roughly seven months before internal charges were filed against Newton Jones accusing him of misusing union money — places it in a critical period for the union’s leadership. Jones was removed from office in 2023 by his executive council, and a federal indictment followed in August 2024.
The forensic firm and the whistleblowers
Alhambra also questioned McClitis about a forensic firm the union hired after internal charges were filed against Newton Jones in April 2023. The firm, she said, was hired to identify the whistleblowers. The process included conducting searches of employees’ computers and emails.
McClitis testified he believed the decision to hire the forensic firm was made by former International Secretary-Treasurer William Creeden and his son, Ryan Creeden, a Boilermakers employee who handled IT work for the union.
Alhambra asked whether the hiring decision went before the International Executive Council for approval.
“I don’t think it did,” McClitis said, adding, “I wasn’t part of the engagement.”
McClitis testified that the forensic firm’s work was stopped on May 25, 2023.
That detail places the search of employee communications squarely in the weeks after internal misconduct allegations surfaced — and before the executive council ousted Newton Jones from his post. Prosecutors have used the episode to suggest that members of union leadership took steps to identify those who raised concerns rather than to investigate the underlying conduct.
The defendants and the charges
Four ex-Boilermakers are on trial. Newton Jones, 72; his wife, Kateryna Jones, 33; Creeden, 78; and former International Vice President Lawrence McManamon, 78, were among seven former union members indicted in August 2024 for conspiracy to commit offenses under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, as well as other felonies.
Prosecutors allege the defendants conspired to embezzle millions that went toward salary and benefits for no-show jobs, luxury international travel, fine dining, vacation payouts and unauthorized loans.
Three others charged in the case have already pleaded guilty. Warren Fairley — who briefly took over as Boilermakers president in 2023 after Jones was removed — and Jones’ son, Cullen Jones, pleaded guilty in March to one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of embezzlement from a labor organization. Both are scheduled to be sentenced June 30.
Kathy Stapp, who became the union’s International Secretary-Treasurer after Creeden resigned in 2023, pleaded guilty in December 2024 to one count of racketeering conspiracy. Her sentencing is scheduled for July 7. Both Fairley and Stapp testified for the government earlier in the trial.
The trial is being held in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, because the alleged crimes occurred when the union was based there. The headquarters was moved to Kansas City, Missouri, in 2023.
