New Jersey Corruption: Judge tosses out embezzlement conviction of union leader 'Buzzy' Dressel

04/11/2014

MICHAEL KARAS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Richard “Buzzy” Dressel leaving court.

A federal judge has tossed out the conviction of a former North Jersey labor leader who was found guilty of conspiring to embezzle more than $145,000 from an electricians union in a scheme to pad the salary of his future wife.

U.S. District Judge William J. Martini granted a defense motion to acquit Richard “Buzzy” Dressel on the two counts of which he was convicted by a jury in November, according to the judge’s opinion issued Thursday.

The jury had acquitted Dressel, a former business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 164 in Paramus, of six of the eight counts following a trial in federal court in Newark.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office disagrees with the judge’s opinion, said Rebekah Carmichael, public affairs officer for the office. The office is reviewing the decision and considering its options, she said.

Jeffrey D. Smith, Dressel’s attorney, did not return a phone call to his law office Thursday.

Dressel, of Montvale, and his friend, John M. DeBouter, then president and second ranking officer of the local, were indicted on charges that they conspired in two separate schemes to fraudulently provide multiple sources of income to Kathleen Libonati, a caterer who married Dressel in 2010.

The jury found Dressel guilty of conspiring with DeBouter to embezzle $145,973 in salary and fringe benefits for Libonati from January 2008 through March 2010 and embezzling $75,554 in salary and benefits for which Libonati “performed no genuine service to Local 164 or its members” between March 2008 and January 2009.

At the close of the prosecution and defense cases, attorneys for Dressel asked the judge to acquit Dressel on all counts based on a federal rule that calls for acquittals when “the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction.”

Martini said the government’s evidence was insufficient to prove that Libonati had a low-show or no-show job and was double dipping. To the claim that Libonati’s hiring was “unauthorized” the judge said the evidence showed that Libonati was sworn into the union membership and her catering expenses were disclosed to the executive board.

“The court finds that no rational jury could conclude that the government met its burden to establish that genuine services were not rendered and that Dressel acted with fraudulent intent beyond a reasonable doubt,” the judge wrote.

Based on the acquittal of the embezzlement conviction, he said the conspiracy conviction had to be overturned because “since there is no substantive crime here, Dressel could not agree to commit a substantive crime and there can be no conspiracy conviction.”

DeBouter was severed from the trial after his lawyer fainted while questioning a witness and later underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm. It’s unclear when his trial will start.

Libonati had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor embezzlement count, admitting that she submitted a $78 medical claim to the local before she was eligible to receive coverage.


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