DETROIT – A former Treasurer of the Detroit Fire Fighters Union was sentenced to one year in federal prison for embezzlement.
Verdine Day, 62, allegedly embezzled over $200,000 in union funds, according to U. S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison.
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Day worked as a firefighter, engineer, and held other positions with the fire department and the union. She was hired by the Detroit Fire Department in 1986.
According to officials, during the four years that Day was a treasurer, she obtained $167,900 in union funds. Day is accused of issuing checks in her name, changing the payee name in the union’s software, cashing checks voided by her in Quickbooks, writing checks made payable to cash, and withdrawing cash from the DFFA bank accounts.
Officials also say that Day would use the DFFA credit cards for personal use when she was a treasurer and afterward when she was retired.
She used the money to buy flights, hotel rooms, cruises, cable TV service, furniture, car insurance premiums, and national and state parks fees, according to authorities.
Some of the credit cards were used on a Royal Caribbean cruise in 2017, a cruise on the Liberty of the Seas in 2019, a casino in Ohio in 2019, and a Bubba Gump Shrimp in Mexico in 2019.
“As treasurer of the Detroit Fire Fighters Association, Verdine Day had a duty to safeguard the dues paid by men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect our community,” said Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office James A. Tarasca.