U.S. says auditor was fired for aiding probe of union leader

The federal government filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing officers who oversee benefit trust funds for Southern California cement workers of illegally firing an employee because she cooperated with a criminal investigation of a local union leader.

In the civil complaint, the U.S. Labor Department seeks the reinstatement, with back pay and interest, of Cheryle Robbins, who was audit and collections director for the funds.

The government also petitioned the court to remove a number of board members for the trusts, including the head of Cement Masons Union, Local 600, Scott Brain.

“Workers must be free to participate in Department of Labor inquiries without fear of retaliation,” Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi said in a statement. “By law, they have a right to report suspected violations to the department and must be allowed to cooperate with investigators.”

The Bell Gardens-based union and attorneys for the labor organization and trusts did not return calls for comment Wednesday.

Citing records that were turned over to Labor Department investigators, The Times reported last year that Brain supported efforts to place Robbins on leave in 2011 after she complained about millions of dollars in missing employer contributions to the trusts.

The funds pay for the masons’ healthcare, retirement and other benefits. Robbins was later discharged.

Brain has been under investigation over allegations that he allowed employers to skip their payments to the funds, spent dues money on an extramarital affair and retaliated against whistle-blowers, according to records and interviews. He has said he did nothing wrong.

The union, whose 1,700 members helped construct Disney Hall, Staples Center and other signature Southern California buildings, is a force in local and state politics as a regular donor to election campaigns.

Robbins, 65, said the Labor Department’s action vindicated her. “I look forward to justice being served,” she said.

She said she has not found another job.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, says that the defendants moved against Robbins after a Labor Department investigator contacted her in connection with the inquiry into Brain. Five months after being placed on paid leave, Robbins was let go when the trusts retained a company to run its operations, according to the complaint and interviews.

The company, Zenith American Solutions, kept all the trusts’ employees except Robbins. The suit names Zenith Solutions as a defendant. Attempts to reach a company representative for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Among the allegations under investigation in the criminal investigation is that Brain spent union funds on an affair with Melissa Cook, an attorney retained by the trusts at the time.

Brain signed Cook’s checks, and her firm’s fees for representing the trusts increased significantly on his watch, billing records show.

Cook has said her billings were appropriate. She resigned from the trusts after a federal agent called her in May 2013 and asked if she was having an affair with Brain, according to people familiar with the events who were not authorized to speak publicly.

She is not named as a defendant in the civil complaint, but the filing says she had a “conflict of interest” related to Brain and aided in the efforts to fire Robbins. Cook said Wednesday that the complaint was “abominable” and that the allegations were “absolutely incorrect.”

paul.pringle@latimes.com