Ex-N.J. carpenters union official convicted of embezzling $85K to fund go-go bar binges

By Joe Ryan/The Star-Ledger

SOMERVILLE — A former carpenters union official from Somerset County was convicted in federal court in Trenton today of pocketing $85,000 from the organization to host hundreds of lunchtime drinking sprees at go-go bars.

Shawn Clark (right), a former carpenters union official who served on the Raritan Valley Community College board of trustees, at the Clarkson S. Fisher Federal Courthouse earlier this month with his attorney John H. Fahy. Clark is accused of illegally charging $85,000 to the labor organization's credit card, mostly at go-go bars.

After deliberating less than six hours, a jury found Shawn Clark, 45, guilty of embezzlement for using the union’s American Express card during more than 450 visits over seven years to watering holes that included Johnny A's Hitching Post in Paterson and Pure Go Go in Manville. He faces up to five years in prison for each of the 16 counts in the indictment.

“You treated that card as if it were your own – didn’t you?” Assistant U.S. Attorney V. Grady O’Malley asked Clark during a cross examination.

Clark, the ex-business manager for Local 455 of the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, spent hours on the stand last week arguing he was conducting union meetings at the clubs. Part of his job, he said, was drumming up union business by entertaining contractors, tradesmen and the occasional politician who felt at ease around pulsing music and dancing women.

“It’s a guys’ type of place,” Clark said.

But prosecutors said Clark, who was fired from the union in 2008, ruled the local with an "iron fist." To help conceal his bar tabs, which occasionally exceeded $1,000, he installed a close friend as treasurer, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Romankow. The prosecutor said Clark traveled to strip clubs miles away from the union’s office in Somerville, buying untold number of beers, shots with Red Bull chasers and tiny bottles of Chardonnay for the women on stage.

“Are strippers part of any business lunch?” Romankow asked the jury.

With roughly 600 members, Local 455 represents workers in Somerset and Hunterdon counties. Clark took over in 1996 from his father, George Clark, who ran the local for 25 years.

The defendant’s lawyer, James J. Fahy described Clark as a father and hard-working “suburban-type guy" who coached youth sports graduated from Glassboro State College.

He had been appointed by former governors Jon Corzine and James E. McGreevey to the Raritan Valley Community College board of trustees, but resigned after his arrest last June.