Founder and Treasurer of Labor Union Charged with Mail Fraud

WASHINGTON, July 1 - The founder and treasurer of the National Association of Special Police and Security Officers (NASPSO) was charged with four counts of mail fraud in connection with his operation of a pension plan for members of NASPSO, a labor union representing private security guards assigned to protect federal buildings in the metro Washington area.

The charges were announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division; Mabel Capolongo, Director of the Philadelphia Regional Office of the Employee Benefits Security Administration of the Department of Labor; and Robert L. Panella, Special Agent in Charge of the Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations of the Washington, D.C. Regional Office.

Caleb Gray-Burriss, 59, of Washington, was arrested Tuesday in Washington, and charged in an indictment returned by a grand jury on June 25, 2010, and unsealed today. Gray-Burriss will make his initial appearance tomorrow in U.S. District Court in Washington.

The indictment charges that, from approximately June 2004 through August 2006, Gray-Burriss wrote numerous checks to himself or to other third parties from the checking account where he had placed funds intended for the NASPSO pension plan to cash. The indictment alleges that Gray-Burriss spent more than $100,000 of the pension plan funds in this way, while at the same time falsely maintaining that it was an operational fund that he was properly administering and that was providing benefits to the beneficiaries.

The investigation leading to the indictment and arrest of Gray-Burriss was conducted by investigators from two agencies of the U.S. Department of Labor - the Employee Benefits Security Administration and the Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Vincent Falvo of the Criminal Division's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section.