(The following Associated Press report appeared at CNN.com on September 19.)
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The indicted president of the United Transportation Union intends to remain in office and fight charges that he and others solicited payments from lawyers seeking to represent union members, a spokesman said Thursday.
Byron Alfred Boyd Jr. is permitted by union bylaws to hold office while indicted and intends to do so, said Frank Wilner, spokesman for the Cleveland-based union.
The union has about 125,000 members nationwide in the railroad, bus, mass transit and airline industries.
Boyd was elected to a four-year term in August. He took over as the union’s president in February 2001 when then-president, Charles Leonard Little, resigned for health reasons, Wilner said.
Little also was indicted, as were an assistant to Boyd and a former union employee. A message was left Thursday at a telephone listing under Little’s name.
Boyd, 57, of Seattle, Washington and Little, 69, of Leander, Texas, were released on $100,000 bond each after pleading innocent before Magistrate Judge Marcia Crone in Houston on Monday.
The four were indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Houston on charges of racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and bribery in connection with the alleged scheme.
The indictment said the four met secretly with lawyers to solicit payments from them for inclusion on a designated legal counsel list to be distributed to union members. The four also are accused of seeking cash for their campaigns for union office.
“We cannot and will not tolerate union officials who abuse their positions of trust for personal gain,” U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby said.
Boyd, in a statement posted on the union’s Web site, called the charges “unfounded.”
“I have every intention to pursue this matter to a final and full conclusion that completely exonerates me,” he said.