DETROIT (WWJ) -- A former Detroit Fire Department Union leader is facing 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to embezzling more than $220,000 in union funds to spend on trips around the world.
Federal authorities said 62-year-old Verdine Day, of Eastpointe, plead guilty on Thursday, Dec. 2, to one count of bank fraud in exchange for the U.S. Attorney's Office agreeing not to bring additional charges against her.
During her four years as treasurer of the Detroit Fire Fighters Association, from 2015 to 2019, the U.S. Attorney's Office said she wrote herself around $167,000 of fraudulent checks and used DFFA union credit cards as her own personal credit cards, even after she retired.
In total, she charged approximately $49,000 in personal expenses, which included flights, hotel rooms, cruises, car insurance premiums, satellite and cable TV service, national and state park fees and furniture.
For example, officials said Day used the credit card to charge about $9,000 for a Royal Caribbean cruise in 2017 and almost $9,000 for another one in 2019.
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The credit card's were also used to pay for her food and drink. Authorities said she used the cards to pay for her bar bill at an Ohio casino in 2019 and for a meal at a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant in Cozumel, Mexico in 2019.
"As treasurer of the Detroit Fire Department Union, Verdine Day had a duty to safeguard the dues paid by men and women who put their lives on the line each day to protect the citizens of Detroit,” said Timothy Waters, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office. “Today’s guilty plea is an admission she violated her duty and the trust of these brave men and women."
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Day will be facing a fine of up to $1 million and an unknown amount of restitution costs when she is sentenced in March 2022.
U.S. Attorney Sarah Resnick Cohen is prosecuting the case.
The investigation of this case was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Labor.