Ex-UAW officials to be sentenced for extortion; appeals planned
A jury convicted Donny G. Douglas and Jay D. Campbell last June of demanding that two unqualified men -- Campbell's son and the son of another UAW official -- be hired in high-paying skilled trades positions if the financially crippling strike, which lasted 87 days, was to end.
The two face likely prison terms when they are sentenced by U.S. District Judge Nancy G. Edmunds.
But today's sentencing will not end the long-running case, since lawyers for Douglas and Campbell are expected to appeal their convictions to the
6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.The case already has been to the 6th Circuit once. Douglas, who was a UAW international service representative, and Campbell, who was a longtime shop committee chairman at the plant, were indicted in September 2002 after a four-year federal investigation.
The charges were dismissed in 2003, when Edmunds found they did not amount to a violation of federal law. But the federal appeals court reversed Edmunds in 2004, and the charges were reinstated.
Lawyers for Douglas, 65, of Holly, and Campbell, 65, of Davisburg argue GM suffered no monetary loss because the hired employees received positive evaluations and were kept on after their probationary periods.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney James Wouczyna argued in a sentencing memorandum the union officials "were expressly tried and convicted of extortion by threatening the property of General Motors by continuing an ongoing strike costing millions of dollars per day."