From the Houston Chronicle
By HARVEY RICE
The guilty pleas of three officials in the nation’s largest railroad operating union are the opening salvo in a bribery probe that could snare some Houston lawyers and officials in other unions, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Gallagher said investigators also will look into the possibility that some people committed perjury before the grand jury.
The United Transportation Union officers are the focus of the investigation, he said, and authorities also are looking into “the conduct and activities of attorneys.”
Gallagher revealed the continuing investigation in his answer to a question by U.S. District Judge Sim Lake following a guilty plea by John Russell Rookard, 58, a board member for the United Transportation Union Insurance Association.
Gallagher told Lake that many of the attorneys listed in a plea agreement detailing Rookard’s alleged crimes were from Houston.
The indictment of Rookard and three other union officials in September focused on allegations of the sale of access by attorneys to union workers injured on the job.
The indictment alleged that union presidents determined which attorneys were included on the union’s designated legal counsel list, a coveted designation because it gave attorneys easier access to injured union members in potentially lucrative damage suits.
The 1908 Federal Employers Liability Act allows unlimited damages for railroad workers because their jobs are so hazardous.
Lawyers on the list were given union membership, which allowed them access to otherwise closed union meetings and the imprimatur of the union, authorities said.
At the time of the indictments, 56 designated legal counsels were listed on the union’s Web site, six in Texas and five from the Houston area.
Rookard was top assistant to United Transportation Union International P