Plymouth County DA’s office: case “still under review”

The Plymouth County District Attorney’s office has not pressed charges in relation to more than $100,000 missing from the Plymouth County correctional officers union funds.

“At this point it’s still under review,” said Assistant District Attorney Bridget Middleton.

In a March 1 report to Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz, state Inspector General Gregory Sullivan found “serious” discrepancies in the management of the fund, which pools $50-per-month union dues from the 350 officers in the union, called the Association of County Employees (ACE).

Middleton declined to offer a timeframe for when the district attorney’s office would decide whether it will press charges in the case.

Union officials complained to Cruz that more than $100,000 was missing union funds about two years ago. Cruz referred the matter to the inspector general’s office, which spent more than 18 months investigating.

In the report’s six pages of findings, Sullivan wrote that former treasurer Stephen Nicholson of Buzzards Bay wrote 369 checks to himself for $161,069 in union money between 2004 and 2010.

The report also states that Nicholson under-reported his income to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service by $101,643 between 2004 and 2008.

Although the report describes some of the findings as “substantive,” it does not accuse Nicholson of any wrongdoing and repeatedly states it is up to the district attorney to take the case further, if warranted.

Middleton did not want to comment on aspects of the report.

“Until we're done deciding what we're going to do, I'm not going to comment on pieces of it,” Middleton said.

Alex Bloom may be reached at abloom@enterprisenews.com.

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