Franklin Park, Ill., Plan Administrator Ordered To Restore $7,000 To Employee Benefit Plan

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

Kent Sarius, an administrator of an employee benefit plan for a labor union in Franklin Park, Ill., was ordered to restore $7,000 to the plan in a consent order and judgment obtained by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The consent order and judgment resolved a lawsuit brought by the department on Jan. 13 as a result of an investigation by the Chicago Regional Office of the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration into violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

The lawsuit alleged that Sarius violated the prohibited transaction provisions of ERISA and provisions that prohibit self-dealing by using money from The Independent Contract Mail Drivers’ Association Dental Assist Fund to pay himself a monthly salary of $150 from January 1995 to February 1999, and to pay his wife, Denise, a monthly salary of $350 from January 1995 to approximately December 1998.

The Dental Assist Fund was established in 1990 by the Independent Contract Mail Drivers’ Association to provide dental benefits to its members. The fund covered 180 employees and had assets totaling approximately $4,000 as of September 1996.

The consent order and judgment were entered on Mar. 15 in the federal district court in Chicago, Ill.

Herman v. Kent Sarius et al
Civil Action No. 00C-0237

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Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.