Former head of Smithfield Foods union pleads guilty to embezzling workers’ money
The former president of Local 1208, the meatpackers’ union representing workers at the massive Smithfield Foods plant, pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to helping embezzle more than $250,000 in union money.
Keith Ludlum, who led more than 3,600 workers in eastern North Carolina, was indicted in a conspiracy to steal their funds dating from 2012 to 2015, using the union debit card and checks.
With that money, the indictment said, Ludlum and an unnamed person took a $5,478 trip to a resort in the Dominican Republic and a $469 trip to Sea World in Florida; bought two Honda all-terrain vehicles worth $14,769; spent $436 on a semi-automatic handgun at Gander Mountain; paid for $1,978 in personal car insurance; and made numerous cash withdrawals.
His attorney, Joshua Howard, said Ludlum would have no comment before sentencing this spring.
U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle said the dual charges of conspiracy and embezzlement bring a maximum penalty of five years in prison each.
Last year, former union secretary-treasurer Terry Slaughter pleaded guilty to federal embezzlement charges and agreed to repay $62,315.
“This prosecution is part of the Department of Justice’s ongoing effort to ensure honesty and integrity for the members of our union community,” Higdon said in a 2019 press release.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Toby Lathan said Tuesday that Ludlum and Slaughter had financial oversight, and in 2014, were both accused of misusing funds. An audit from both the UFCW and investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor later confirmed this, Lathan said.
Questioned by Boyle, Ludlum said workers paid roughly $10 a week, and that the local collected between $1 and $1.5 million a year.
Narrow vote to join UFCW
Smithfield’s Bladen County pork plant is the world’s largest, employing nearly 5,000 and processing more than 30,000 hogs a day, according to the company.
The Bladen County slaughterhouse unionized in 2008 with a narrow vote to join the United Food and Commercial Workers International, or UFCW, as a local chapter. The vote capped a 15-year-effort fueled by workers’ complaints over injuries, accidents and other conditions, the N&O has reported.
Ludlum, then a union activist who was fired from his job at the plant and rehired by court order, was active in the push, urging the plant workers to organize in rallies that drew speakers as well-known as John Edwards, former senator and U.S. presidential candidate.
“I think they’re killing enough hogs, and they don’t need to kill their workers anymore,” Ludlum told The N&O in 2007.
Ludlum filed his own federal lawsuit against the UFCW, arguing that union officials disliked him from the beginning of his tenure in 2011 and stating that the local board had approved his Dominican Republic trip.
He cited lost wages and emotional distress, seeking nearly $500,000 in damages, but the suit was dismissed in 2019.
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 11:04 AM.