United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who is being investigated by a federal grand jury, has hired two former federal prosecutors who specialize in fraud and bribery cases and work as defense lawyers for a Washington, D.C., firm with a stable of high-profile clients, including trillionaire Elon Musk and former New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The hiring of lawyers Robert Zink and Ben O’Neil of the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan comes amid an investigation focused on allegations Fain pressured another high-ranking union official to secure benefits for his fiancée and her sister, sources told The Detroit News. The sources requested anonymity to freely discuss aspects of a secret federal grand jury investigation.
The hirings hint at possible federal crimes being scrutinized in an investigation that increases pressure on the union weeks away from when UAW members will decide whether to elect Fain to a second term as president. The probe also coincides with attempts by the UAW to free itself from a years-long corruption scandal that sent two former UAW presidents, labor leaders and automotive executives to federal prison.
“Anybody in their right mind should hire a former federal prosecutor if they think they are being investigated,” said federal defense lawyer Anjali Prasad, a former federal prosecutor and owner of Prasad Legal in Bloomfield Hills. “It doesn’t mean he’s guilty. It means he’s on the radar and needs an experienced litigator to unpack this problem.”
No dues money is being used in Fain’s personal legal defense in connection with the DOJ investigation, according to a UAW spokesperson. The union does offer liability insurance as a standard benefit available to all UAW staff. Employees can pay the premiums from their own personal funds, as they would for health insurance. No dues are used for the insurance, the spokesperson said.
Zink and O’Neil work for a firm with a long history with Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX founder. In 2023, the firm won a multi-billion securities trial that ended with jurors concluding Musk and Tesla were not liable for misleading investors.
Quinn Emanuel also defended Adams against federal bribery charges. He was facing bribery, fraud and conspiracy charges and accused of soliciting illegal campaign contributions, but last year a top official at President Donald Trump’s Justice Department directed prosecutors to drop the case.
Zink is the former head of the fraud section of the U.S. Justice Department’s criminal division and acting deputy assistant attorney general in the department’s criminal division who spent more than a decade prosecuting fraud and bribery cases. That included a 2012 conviction of Miami-area doctors convicted of participating in a $205 million Medicare fraud scheme — the largest such fraud in U.S. history at the time.
Zink has handled cases in federal court in Detroit, too. In 2016, he helped prosecute a $13.2 million psychotherapy fraud scheme involving several co-conspirators. That included Dr. Alphonso Berry of Orchard Lake, who was accused of participating in a scheme that involved using the Medicare information of mentally disabled Detroit residents to defraud Medicare.
O’Neil, meanwhile, focuses on white collar and corporate investigations. During his career as a federal lawyer, he worked foreign bribery, financial and health care fraud.
The hirings signal a concern for Fain, said Harley Shaiken, a labor expert and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.
“It indicates he is very concerned about where this might go when you hire attorneys at that level,” he said. “They’re very expensive. It reflects concerns. It doesn’t reflect guilt. That’s for a judge to decide or a jury.”
It’s unclear what the ultimate impact on the union will be, he added. A DOJ investigation suggests the union may need more than direct elections to ensure a strong leadership. It could open the way for pursuing an extended monitorship under the 2021 consent decree. Some may fear it could distract or weaken the union at the bargaining table.
“Shawn Fain has done some impressive things at the bargaining table, with the stand-up strike, and provided real gains,” Shaiken said, “but that is not a pass for a democratic process when it comes to other officers and when it comes to the future of the union.”
He noted Fain owned the crowd at the union’s quadrennial constitutional convention last month, but a federal investigation can make a big difference.
“On the eve of an election, could it have an impact?” he said. “Yes, it could have a significant impact.”
The ongoing investigation of Fain involves a subpoena issued by a federal grand jury to the court-appointed watchdog overseeing the UAW.
That watchdog, attorney Neil Barofsky, last month concluded a separate investigation into allegations of retaliation by Fain against Vice President Rich Boyer, who now is running against Fain for reelection. But the monitor deferred a decision about any remedial action pending further consultation with the parties to the union’s consent decree with the DOJ.
“Department of Justice policy prohibits me from neither confirming or denying the existence of an investigation,” said Gina Balaya, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit.
In a statement Sunday, Fain referred to hiring a law firm but did not mention Zink or O’Neil or mention he had hired criminal defense lawyers.
“I’ve retained a law firm to fight against the Monitor’s trumped-up claims against me,” Fain said in a statement. “What the monitor is doing is wrong, it’s unfair to the UAW and to you as members, and my lawyers are looking at any and all legal options I can pursue to make it stop.”
Fain is the fourth UAW president in recent years linked to a DOJ investigation. Dennis Williams and Gary Jones were convicted of charges, including embezzlement of union funds, and sent to prison. Federal agents investigating a kickback and bribery scandal within the union also looked at former President Rory Gamble; no charges came from that probe.
The convictions and a deeper “culture of corruption” within the union described by federal prosecutors led to a consent decree and the appointment of the monitor, Barofsky of New York, to oversee union elections and activities starting in 2021 for at least six years.
In Barofsky’s latest report filed last month in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, he said he found unsupported, unfounded and exaggerated reasons cited by Fain in Boyer’s removal from leadership of the Stellantis Department. Additionally, he said Fain acted improperly with respect to matters involving people close to him.
Fain hit back with a statement claiming the investigation had been politically motivated. He pointed back to a heated 2024 International Executive Board meeting where the discussion centered on how the monitor responded to the union’s statement calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.
The monitor’s report described Fain as exhibiting a “recurring pattern of retaliation” and “abused the authority of his office.” Boyer had accused Fain of retaliating after he declined to intervene in Fain’s fiancée’s sister’s worker’s compensation claim and failed to approve a cash bonus that would have benefited a pool of non-UAW employees at the Stellantis National Training Center, which included Fain’s fiancée, Keesha McConaghie.
The report described details of what Barofsky described as “preferential treatment” by Fain in his fiancée’s sister’s worker’s compensation claim. The monitor said he substantiated the claim about improper actions related to benefits affecting his fiancée, but additional details weren’t being shared pending further consultation with the parties of the consent decree.
Boyer is now running against Fain in a six-member race for president. Ballots are scheduled to be mailed to the union’s nearly 400,000 members plus retirees in late August.
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: UAW’s Fain hires criminal defense team amid federal grand jury probe | Exclusive
Reporting by Robert Snell, Breana Noble and Luke Ramseth, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Robert Snell, Breana Noble and Luke Ramseth, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
