Financial advisor to union convicted for fraud that paid for football outing

After an FBI raid of the offices of a New York City law enforcement officers union and interviews of its top officials, its president sent a text message to its financial advisor.

"Hey, investigation is looking at annuity fund lol," former New York State Trooper Kenneth Wynder Jr. said in the October 2019 text to Andrew "Drew" Brown, the advisor and benefits coordinator to the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association — which represents officers and agents at three city agencies, according to court documents.

A jury in New York's federal court convicted Wynder, 59, and Brown, 55, on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud on May 31 after investigators said the two misappropriated $500,000 from the union's annuity fund that Wynder used on purchases such as a Lexus, a sailing trip and an outing to see the Dallas Cowboys play the New York Giants. Wynder's rap includes further convictions on one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and four counts of tax evasion. 

For financial advisors seeking to work with unions and their members, the case presents the latest example of the need for frequent audits and other outside reviews of any fund transfers, according to regulatory expert Louis Straney of Arbitration Insight. While unions don't receive as much attention as more common niches in the industry such as athletes, technology entrepreneurs or doctors, some advisors have built large practices among unions and workers. 

"It's just a massive failure of what you would expect for the retirements of working-class people," Straney said. "There were red flags and nobody with any authority acted on them."

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The lawyers representing Wynder and Brown, the founder of a Westchester-based financial services firm that wasn't identifiable through court documents or industry regulatory databases, didn't respond to email requests for comment. An attorney for Wynder, Ying Stafford, told the New York Post that they intend to appeal his conviction but declined additional comment. 

Current officials with the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association, a union that represents city environmental protection police officers, sanitation enforcement agents, and Department of Transportation highway and sewer inspectors, didn't respond to an email.

"As the jury unanimously found, Kenneth Wynder and Andrew Brown raided a union-sponsored retirement plan for years, placing their personal interest over the union members they were duty bound to look out for," Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. "The jury also found that Wynder then evaded taxes on income he obtained from the union, including as a product of their theft from the union members' retirement accounts."

Wynder and Brown carried out what prosecutors describe as a "scheme to steal, embezzle, and misappropriate money from the annuity fund and individual members' retirement accounts" from 2012 to 2020, according to court documents. The city government-financed annuities serve as the union members' retirement accounts, similar to a 401(k) or a pension. The outlays they arranged from the annuities to the union's operating account, which Wynder controlled, wiped out the whole balance of certain members' retirement savings, investigators said.

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Instead, the money went to rent for a New York apartment that Wynder used in order to establish residency in the city for a failed City Council run and a $77,000 Lexus car, among other uses, according to court documents. 

In September 2018, Wynder used the union's money to take five union employees and members on a trip to Dallas to see the Giants-Cowboys game and attend a college football game as well, investigators said. The following year, he lied to prospective members by claiming that no union money got spent on the trip.

The former treasurer of the union, Steven Whittick, is serving a two-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2021 to conspiracy to commit tax evasion and making false statements. Each of the fraud charges against Wynder and Brown carry maximum sentences of up to 20 years in federal prison. Their judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for Oct. 18.