TSA Union Local Leader Gets House Arrest for Misappropriating Funds

A federal judge in Boston sentenced the president of a Transportation Security Administration union local to six months of house arrest after she pleaded guilty to misappropriating nearly $30,000 in funds that were designated for the labor organization.

Marie LeClair, 59, was the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2617, which represented frontline TSA employees in the Boston area. But according to the Justice Department, beginning in 2015, LeClair transferred money from union bank accounts to a travel debit card in her name without the union’s knowledge or assent and used the money for “personal expenses.”

In one instance in 2018, she made a wire transfer of $3,000 from a union account to the debit card. In total, LeClair misappropriated $29,050 in union funds for her personal use.

LeClair was charged with one count of wire fraud in U.S. District Court in April, and she pleaded guilty in June. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani sentenced her to six months of home confinement, followed by three years of probation, and ordered her to pay restitution in the amount she stole from AFGE. The maximum penalty for a federal wire fraud conviction is 20 years in prison.

AFGE did not respond to a request for comment.

Since TSA’s founding following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, employees there lacked civil service protections, only gaining abridged collective bargaining rights after a 2011 decision by the Obama administration. The Biden administration is currently in the process of developing a new personnel system for the agency that would provide the equivalent of Title 5 rights to agency employees, and House lawmakers are pushing to formally apply Title 5 of the U.S. Code to TSA workers as part of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.