Tuesday, November 8, 2011

SEIU's Bill Lloyd Joins Steve Trossman in L.A. Scandal


Tasty uncovered some salacious details about Bill Lloyd, the current head of SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles. Lloyd, who also sits on SEIU’s International Executive Board, has spent the past 7 years living in the Wilshire Grand Hotel… all on the members’ dime… while pulling down three separate SEIU paychecks for more than $220,000 a year.

Tasty’s newest details about Bill Lloyd would fit perfectly in a trashy airport novel: secret love affairs, embezzled funds, federal criminal indictments… and even SEIU’s Steve Trossman. Here’s the scoop:

In 2004, Lloyd landed atop the 25,000-member Local 99 when the Purple Palace appointed him to be a trustee of the local union. What’s perhaps less well known is Lloyd’s sexual relationship with Local 99’s previous president, Janett Humphries, who was abruptly removed from the union’s top spot after embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the union. 

In fact, in 2006 Humphries pleaded guilty in federal court to four counts of embezzlement and one count of conspiracy. In a separate case, she was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy and two counts of perjury. And that’s not even counting her conviction in state court for breaking campaign finance laws and perjury. Among her deeds? Embezzling $30,000 for political campaigns and using union funds to buy plane tickets for her personal travel.

And here’s where Bill Lloyd enters the SEIU drama. While Humphries was doing her criminal deeds, Bill was literally doing Humphries, according to Lloyd’s courtroom testimony. Despite their intimate relationship, who did SEIU choose to take over Humphries’ position atop Local 99? None other than her “former” boyfriend, Bill Lloyd!

Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse! Tasty wonders how hard Lloyd actually worked to find additional evidence of his ex-girlfriend’s criminal acts. “Hey honey, you shoulda seen the papers I found in your bottom desk drawer today…”

So how does Steve Trossman fit into this sordid affair? Well, Trossman was SEIU’s public relations spin-meister and was assigned to do “damage-control” with the press – the same role he played in covering up Tyrone Freeman’s million-dollar theft from SEIU members.

Here’s what Trossman, who’s not known for his honesty, told the Los Angeles Times about Bill Lloyd’s appointment to run Local 99: 
Asked why Lloyd remained a trustee despite his relationship to the case and to Humphries, Steve Trossman, a spokesman for SEIU in Washington, wrote in an e-mail to The Times: "Mr. Lloyd was no longer having an affair with Janett Humphries prior to the time he was appointed to the position of deputy trustee of Local 99. Mr. Lloyd is an experienced leader and has done a very good job as deputy trustee."
So there you have it in all its disgusting detail:  another SEIU corruption scandal, slathered with cronyism and wrapped in an SEIU cover-up courtesy of Steve Trossman. Trossman, of course, currently serves as Dave Regan’s right-hand propaganda man at SEIU-UHW, where he earns $200,000 a year. Last year, Trossman famously waged SEIU’s law-breaking disinformation campaign against Kaiser workers, which notoriously violated SEIU members’ federal labor rights and overturned the largest US union election in 70 years. Quite a revealing tale!