Posted on: Friday, October 11, 2002

Widow testifies Rodrigues hired spouse to pay loan

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

The widow of a man appointed by United Public Workers union head Gary Rodrigues to act as a consultant on the dental benefits program offered to UPW members testified in federal court yesterday that her husband did no consulting work but received checks from Hawaii Dental Service for more than a year.

Marietta Loughrin, 83, said she was living in Rodrigues' home near Bend, Ore., in the early 1990s when Rodrigues approached her husband, Al Loughrin, to suggest that he become a paid consultant to the UPW on its dental plan.

Rodrigues longtime live-in girlfriend, Georgietta Carroll, was Marietta Loughrin's daughter and Al Loughrin's stepdaughter Marietta Loughrin said she was in the room when Rodrigues proposed the idea as a way to pay back $10,000 he had borrowed from the Loughrins earlier to install a sprinkler system in the front and back yards of his property in Oregon.

When asked directly by Assistant U.S. Attorney Florence Nakakuni if her husband actually did any consulting work for the UPW, Loughrin said, "Not that I know of, no."

Rodrigues, state director of the 13,000-member UPW, and his daughter, Robin Sabatini, are on trial on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy to defraud a health-care benefit program and money laundering. Rodrigues alone is charged with embezzling labor organization assets and accepting kickbacks in connection with an employee welfare benefit plan.

The prosecution contends that Rodrigues negotiated health and dental insurance contracts with private insurance companies on behalf of UPW members and asked that a portion of the premiums paid by union members be set aside to pay a union consultant to periodically review and evaluate the two benefit plans.

But instead of hiring legitimate consultants, Rodrigues first hired Al Loughrin as a consultant and a few years later, Sabatini, without his union's knowledge or consent, the prosecution claims.

At issue in the case is whether Al Loughrin did any consulting work at all and whether the work done by Sabatini was worth the amounts she was paid in the mid to late 1990s.

In response to questions from Rodrigues' lawyer Doron Weinberg, the widow said she did not know if her husband, who once worked in the UPW's accounting office in Honolulu, did any accounting work for the union when the couple lived in Oregon.

Asked by Weinberg if she were sure that her husband got a consultant payment check each month from Hawaii Dental Service instead of quarterly, the widow said, "Well, he handled it, I didn't."

Weinberg then asked her if her husband might have been paid for consultant work he did on the dental plan that she did not know about.

"He didn't do anything for the dental service. I know because he would have told me, " she testified.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.