Union boss hog in $300K hooker scam
By PHILIP MESSING
www.nypost.com
Last Updated: 6:32 AM, June 17, 2010
Posted: 1:50 AM, June 17, 2010________________________
________________________
___________
A married, obese former president of a Port Authority union admitted yesterday in court to embezzling nearly $300,000 in member dues and using the cash for tawdry hook-ups with prostitutes, casino trips and lavish meals, sources told The Post.
Daniel Hughes, 49, who resigned in disgrace from the local Field Supervisor Association, admitted to Judge Eric Vitaliano in Brooklyn federal court that he stole the cash from January 2005 to last December -- bankrupting the account for his 250 members.
"This PA employee took advantage of his position as a president of a union and abused it in a calculated and egregious manner," said PA Inspector General Robert Van Etten.
"Hughes used his union's funds as his own personal piggy bank," added PA Deputy Attorney General Michael Nestor, the director of investigations for the IG's Office.
In addition to paying restaurant bills and at least one trip to Mohegan Sun, Hughes used the union's ATM card to withdraw cash for nearly a dozen sexual romps with hookers, the sources said.
Hughes, who stands 5-foot-11 and weighs more than 350 pounds -- after recent weight-reduction surgery -- used a Queens-based escort service that billed him $400 to $500 an hour, a source said.
"He used an escort service quite often, nine or 10 times," said the source.
"They hooked up in cheap hotels," the source added, including the Kew Motor Inn along the Grand Central Parkway, which bills itself on its Web site as "the most famous and exotic couples-friendly motel/hotel in Queens!!"
He also took his dates to the Pelham Garden Motel in The Bronx and the posh Bowery Hotel in the East Village.
Hughes also used the union's ATM card to access a Web site that advertises personal ads placed by transsexuals, although the gender of his hookers was not immediately clear. The scam unraveled in December when Hughes began calling in sick and other officials at the union realized their bills were not being paid, a source said.
"What they found was that there was very little money in the union coffers or bank account," said an investigator familiar with the case.
In January, as the probe into Hughes' misdeeds heated up, he resigned his position with the PA and with his union, whose members perform roadway work at the agency's metro-area airports.
Hughes told the judge he was under psychiatric care for posttraumatic-stress disorder, bipolar disorder and depression.
"I've been institutionalized a few times," he acknowledged.
Hughes also said he was being prescribed at least five medications by his doctors, as well as Ambien "to help me sleep."
"Every time I see a drug advertised on TV, I take it," he said.
Assistant US Attorney Marisa Seifan told the court that under federal sentencing guidelines, Hughes faces between 46 and 57 months in prison when he is sentenced at a later date.
The father of a teen boy, Hughes earned $95,914 a year as a field-maintenance supervisor.
He began working for the PA in May 1985 and assumed the presidency of his union in December 2002, succeeding the previous president, who retired.
Richard Greenspan, the general counsel for the United Service Workers -- the parent union -- told The Post that the national union cooperated with authorities when they learned of Hughes' thievery.
Additional reporting by Sally Goldenberg
philip.messing@nypost.com
