Former USCIS Officer Charged With Stealing $60,000 From Federal Union

A former Immigration Services Officer was charged and has agreed to plead guilty to stealing more than $60,000 from a labor union over five years.

Carol A. Aguja, 55, of Reading, MA, was charged with wire fraud. 

The court has not yet scheduled a plea hearing.

Court documents say that Aguja was an immigration services officer employed by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). 

Between 2015 and August 2024, Aguja also served as Treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 38 (AFGE Local 38), a labor organization that represented USCIS employees who lived in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. 

The charging document alleges that, between 2019 and 2024, Aguja defrauded AFGE Local 38 by siphoning funds from the union bank account to pay for her own personal and non-union-related expenses.

 As part of her fraud scheme, Aguja is also alleged to have paid union expenses out of her personal accounts and commingled union and personal funds to conceal her embezzlement. Specifically, Aguja is alleged to have used the AFGE Local 38 credit card to pay approximately $12,508 for personal expenses such as restaurant meals, bills, clothing and dance lessons. 

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She is further alleged to have made 128 cash withdrawals totaling over $23,700 from the AFGE Local 38 account, and to have transferred over $25,000 from the AFGE Local 38 account to her personal accounts. 

Aguja is alleged to have falsified annual forms regarding the union finances that AFGE Local 38 was required to submit to the United States Department of Labor-Management Standards to conceal her fraud. 

The charge of wire fraud provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater, restitution, and forfeiture. 

Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Jonathan Russo, District Director, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Labor-Management Standards; and Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, Ph.D., U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristina E. Barclay of the Public Corruption & Special Prosecutions Unit is prosecuting the case.

The details contained in the charging document are allegations. The defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. 

The alleged embezzlement follows a years-long scandal from the United Auto Workers’ Union in which more than 17 union officials have faced charges. 

Timothy Edmunds, the former secretary-treasurer of Local 412 of the UAW union in Michigan, was accused of stealing more than $2 million from union dues and spending it on clothes, firearms, and vehicles. 

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