A former United Auto Workers official pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges Sept. 4 as part of an ongoing bribery investigation linked to officials at the union.
Michael Grimes, a former senior UAW official, was charged Aug. 9 with conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and money laundering, according to court documents. The former official, who was employed at the union from 2006 through July 1, 2018, was a member of the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources, or CHR, in Detroit.
Grimes was the ninth person charged in the investigation. The probe originally only found a connection to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, but Grimes' charge marked the first connection to the UAW's General Motors Co. department.
GM said the automaker "is deeply disturbed by the conduct of Michael Grimes and other union officials as uncovered by the government's investigation."
"These serious allegations represent a stunning abuse of power and trust," the company said in an emailed statement. "There is no excuse for union officials, entrusted with a fiduciary responsibility to their members and the Center for Human Resources, to enrich themselves at the expense of the union membership they represented — and to steal CHR funds invested by GM for training our hourly employees."
GM added that it is cooperating with the investigation.
Until these charges against Grimes, Fiat Chrysler had been the only automaker involved in the investigation in which eight other officials — either with UAW or Fiat Chrysler — have been charged and sentenced for participating in the bribery conspiracy.
Grimes and two unnamed UAW officials obtained contracts for two vendors to provide items to CHR and UAW members while receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from the vendors, according to the documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division. The UAW officials allegedly did not disclose how these contracts were awarded.
Sentencing for Grimes is scheduled for Jan. 14, 2020, according to court documents.
