Boilermakers’ ousted president stole millions from KC-based union, court filing alleges
Private jet flights. Dinners at high-end restaurants. Expensive wines and tours. Accommodations at international upscale hotels. Trips to Ukraine and other European countries with a wife four decades his junior.
The former longtime president of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers allegedly converted millions of dollars of union funds for personal use, misappropriating the money to support a lavish lifestyle and keep family members on the payroll, according to court documents filed last week in a federal criminal case involving another top union official.
The allegations against Newton B. Jones are laid out in the plea agreement of Tyler Brown, who pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of racketeering conspiracy in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. Brown, 44, who served as the union’s chief of staff and as special assistant to Jones, is accused of scheming with “others known and unknown” to steal from the union.
Jones, 70, has not been charged with any crimes, but the actions described in the plea agreement make it clear that he is a focus of the federal investigation.
Brown, who has a law degree and left his union employment in the fall of 2022, is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 22. The felony charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
The charge comes a year after the union’s executive council voted to oust Jones as international president, accusing him of misusing union funds for personal gain — including funneling large sums of money to his Ukrainian wife for work she never performed. That led to a monthslong court battle over who controlled the union.
In August, a federal judge upheld the union executives’ June 2 decision to remove Jones as president and replace him with recently retired international vice president Warren Fairley.
The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers was established in 1880 and is one of the nation’s oldest unions. It represents about 45,000 workers in the United States and Canada who assemble, install and repair boilers, fit pipes and build power plants and ships.
Jones, who had led the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers since his father retired in 2003, has denied any wrongdoing and said the executive council had no authority under the union’s constitution to dismiss him. After the August hearing, he told The Star that “I’ve done a lot of great things for this union” and said the allegations of financial malfeasance were “all bullshit.”
Jones’ attorney, Patrick McInerney, said in an email to The Star on Tuesday that Jones would not be commenting on the allegations in Brown’s plea agreement.
“At this point, we won’t be providing any response to or comment about Tyler Brown’s plea last week,” McInerney said.
Married 19-year-old from Ukraine
According to Brown’s plea agreement, he was executive director of Industrial Sector Operations for the union starting in 2013, a position appointed by Jones. From 2018 to 2022, the document said, Brown held that position at the same time he was the union’s chief of staff and special assistant to Jones. In fiscal year 2022, his salary and disbursements totaled $319,207, the union’s annual report shows.
Brown was assigned to the union’s headquarters in Kansas City, Kansas, during his employment, the document said. The union moved its headquarters to Kansas City, Missouri, last year. Jones lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and worked from an office there that was owned by the union.
“Jones traveled extensively, domestically and internationally, and rarely visited the Boilermaker’s Union headquarters,” the plea agreement said. From February 2013 through October 2022, it said, Brown was the highest-ranking authority in the Kansas City, Kansas, headquarters in Jones’ absence and was responsible for carrying out Jones’ directives.
“Beginning in February 2013, Brown was aware that Jones, who was around 61 years old, had married a 19-year-old woman, Kateryna Anatolia, who lived in Ukraine,” the plea agreement said. The two, it said, “would travel together in the Ukraine and other cities in Europe for weeks at a time at Boilermakers Union expense when those expenses were not necessary to conduct union business and did not benefit the Boilermakers Union and its members.”
“Brown was also aware that Jones spent Boilermakers Union funds on lavish expenses including private jet flights, upscale restaurant meals, expensive wines, and upscale hotel accommodations which were not necessary to conduct union business … ”
In 2015, when Kateryna Jones accompanied Newton Jones to the United States, the document said, Jones directed Brown and another union staffer to compensate her with back payments for work she had allegedly performed for the union in Ukraine from 2013 to 2015.
Brown suspected she had not done any work, it said, and Jones did not provide details on any work she had purportedly performed. But Brown complied with Jones’ order to make two wire transfers of union funds to Kateryna Jones totaling more than $70,000. Brown also made contributions to the union officers’ pension funds and the United States Railroad Retirement Board on her behalf, the filing said.
“For the period from 2013 through July 2023, with Brown’s assistance, the Boilermakers Union paid Kateryna Jones nearly $2,000,000 in cumulative salary, reimbursed expenses, and benefit contributions for minimal or no productive work,” the document said.
Upscale hotels, fancy meals and expensive tours
Brown knew that Jones liked to travel internationally at the Boilermakers’ expense with Kateryna Jones and large groups of family members, union officers and employees, as well as officials of the union-owned Bank of Labor and other guests even though such trips weren’t always necessary to conduct union business, the plea agreement said.
“These groups led by Jones would stay in upscale hotels, eat at lavish restaurants, and take expensive tours and side trips at Boilermakers Union expense,” it said. “Based on Brown’s own admissions and records of the Boilermakers Union, Jones and other officers of the Boilermakers Union unlawfully converted millions of dollars of union funds in this manner to the travelers’ unauthorized personal use.”
Brown knew that Jones provided no legitimate union-related purpose for many of the international trips made at union expense, the plea agreement said. In one example, it said, Jones directed large groups to travel to Italy on at least seven occasions between 2014 and 2022 to attend conventions of a small Italian union of electrical workers and conduct other alleged Boilermakers Union business.
On one of those trips, in May 2017, the document said, Jones directed a 14-person entourage — including five members of his family — to attend the quadrennial convention of that union, all on the Boilermakers’ dime.
“Although the convention only lasted four days, the Jones-led entourage stayed in Sardinia for seven days and visited Rome for two additional days at the Boilermakers Union’s expense,” it said.
Brown knew that Jones was inviting people on trips whose participation served no union-related purpose and also directed union officials who accompanied Jones to extend their travel “for lengths of time that exceeded any business purpose that the travel might have required,” the plea agreement said.
Brown said Jones gained union employees’ loyalty by choosing them for travel to international locations even though it wasn’t necessary to conduct union business, the document said. Brown directed union administrative secretaries to write letters for Jones’ approval that assigned employees to travel on more than 100 of those trips from 2014 through 2022, it said.
Brown himself made more than 20 such trips to destinations including Spain, Switzerland, Peru, Thailand, Cambodia, Brazil and Australia, the plea agreement said.
“Based on Brown’s own admissions, Jones’ assignment of Boilermakers Union officers and employees on these trips, with Brown’s assistance and participation, unlawfully converted millions of dollars of the Boilermaker Union’s funds to the travelers’ unauthorized personal use in this manner,” the court filing said.
On these international expeditions, it said, “Jones directed that travelers engage in side trips and other entertainment at Boilermakers Union expense that were not necessary to accomplish any possible union purpose; and Jones allowed himself, his family, and other travelers additional days overseas at Boilermakers Union expense that were not necessary to accomplish any possible union purpose and without using vacation time.”
Family members on staff performed ‘few if any duties’
Brown also admitted that he assisted Jones in hiring six of Jones’ family members to union staff positions without requiring them to apply and compete for the jobs, the document said. Those family members received salaries and benefits more than double their market value, it said, and they “performed few if any duties and could report to work as they pleased.”
“Those family members each traveled internationally at the Boilermakers Union’s expense as well as to domestic destinations such as Maui, Hawaii, and Key West, Florida, when such travel was not always necessary to conduct union business, satisfy the union’s objectives or otherwise benefit the union and its membership,” it said.
With Brown’s assistance, the plea agreement said, Jones ignored or violated established union policies he disagreed with or those that would prevent him “from unlawfully enriching himself, his allies, or his family members at the union’s expense.”
A Boilermakers spokesperson told The Star last week that Jones’ relatives no longer are employed by the union.
Around 2015, the plea agreement said, the Boilermakers’ executive council adopted a new vacation policy that required all employees to take at least two weeks’ vacation a year and not carry it over from year to year. But Jones ordered Brown to put the new policy on hold indefinitely, the document said.
“As a result, Jones, Kateryna Jones, Secretary-Treasurer William Creeden, Brown and other officers and employees unlawfully converted more than one million dollars from the Boilermakers Union to the recipients’ unauthorized use in this manner,” it said.
The plea agreement said the Boilermakers’ constitution requires all expenses of the international president and secretary-treasurer to be approved by its executive council. But it said that Brown, at Jones’ direction, removed the standing item of reviewing those expenses from the executive council’s regular meeting agendas.
“As a result, Newton and Kateryna Jones unlawfully converted close to $225,000 of the Boilermakers Union’s funds in credit card charges for restaurant meals in their hometown of Chapel Hill and other merchandise that were not necessary to conduct union business, satisfy the union’s objectives or benefit the Boilermakers Union and its members,” it said.
Failed to disclose bank salaries
The plea agreement also said the union’s constitution prohibits officers from engaging in business outside of regular union duties unless the executive council allows an exception. But Jones served as chairman and CEO of the Bank of Labor, and Creeden was senior executive vice president, it said.
Although that was generally known, the document said, “minutes of the Executive Council meetings show Jones and Creeden never disclosed their salaries (Newton Jones $498,000 and William Creeden $442,000 in 2022 respectively) and the Executive Council never permitted them an exception.”
Jones and Creeden also falsified a form that union officers and employees must file with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards, omitting their Bank of Labor salaries, it said.
The union’s annual report filed with the Labor Department for fiscal year 2022 showed that Jones’ salary and disbursements for official Boilermakers business totaled $656,179. Creeden’s salary and disbursements were listed as $438,878. Those figures do not include their pay from the Bank of Labor.
Creeden, who retired last August, did not respond to requests for comment.
The Star investigated the Boilermakers in 2012, finding that Jones and other executives were living the good life. Jones’ salary and business expenses totaled more than $607,000, which put him above the presidents of the biggest unions in the country. The newspaper also found that several of Jones’ family members and relatives of other officers were earning hefty union salaries as well.
A follow-up story in 2017 found that little had changed. Six-figure salaries were still common for officers and their relatives, as were fine dining, stays in posh hotels and expensive hunting retreats. Cars were still given as parting gifts for retired employees, and hundreds of thousands of dollars continued to be spent on promotional events and videos — all while membership continued its downward spiral and the union’s pension fund struggled to stay afloat.
The Boilermakers issued a statement after Brown’s guilty plea last week.
“The union expects that there will be more convictions, and the union has taken remedial steps to ensure that the practices which the former president engaged in will not happen again,” it said. “The union is cooperating fully with the government’s investigation of actions taken by the former officers.”
