McCall Witness Details $1.5 Million Boilermakers Payouts
Bank of Labor president Robert McCall testified as a witness Wednesday that top Boilermakers union officials drew full-time bank salaries despite rarely showing up, while federal prosecutors laid out alleged no-show bank jobs, $400,000 hunting trips and $1.5 million severance packages in the racketeering conspiracy trial.
The testimony centered on former Boilermakers International President Newton Jones and former Secretary-Treasurer William Creeden, whose pay stubs claimed 80 hours per pay period even though McCall said it was “virtually impossible” for either man to work that schedule. The case is moving through trial with Jones, his wife Kateryna, Creeden and former International Vice President Lawrence McManamon facing indictment from August 2024.
Bank of Labor pay claims
McCall said Jones earned $498,000 a year from the union-owned Bank of Labor and Creeden earned $442,000 a year. He testified that Jones visited the Kansas City-area bank only three or four times a year, a frequency that did not match the hours listed on the payroll records.
Those salary claims are part of the broader allegation that union-controlled money covered compensation for executives who were not regularly working at the bank. McCall’s account gave jurors a specific measure of the gap prosecutors say existed between the pay arrangements and the actual time the executives spent there.
Pheasant trips and severance
McCall also recalled that the union and bank shared the cost of pheasant hunting trips to Paul Nelson Farm in South Dakota, with the last bill running a little north of $400,000. He said attendees flew by private plane to the trips.
A January 2023 board proposal would have given Jones and Creeden $1.5 million each in golden parachutes if union ownership of the bank changed, and the board approved it before knowing the two were under grand jury investigation. That detail sits alongside the spending testimony and ties the compensation questions to a separate severance plan.
Defendants in August 2024
Jones, Kateryna Jones, Creeden and McManamon went on trial after their August 2024 indictment. Three other defendants, including Jones’ son Cullen, have pleaded guilty and await sentencing in June and July.
Defense attorney Andino Reynal said McCall himself was identified as a target of the federal investigation in January 2024, and McCall strongly denied that his testimony was shaped by a desire to avoid indictment. The testimony now gives jurors competing accounts of whether the bank salaries, the hunting trips and the proposed severance packages reflected legitimate compensation or misuse of union-owned resources.
