Well here is a good old fashioned union corruption case. A New Jersey official of the carpenters union embezzled $85,000 by illegally using his union credit card to foot the bill for thousand dollar drinking fests at local clubs (like the “Badda Bing,” I suppose).

Union tippler Shawn Clark apparently spent up to four hours a day on “lunch” at bars and clubs throughout New Jersey sometimes spending $1,000 at a sitting.

Some purchases were mundane, for items such as office supplies and postage stamps. But the majority of the expenses came from smoky watering holes where customers are mostly men and the dancers are scarcely dressed.

Clark, whose wife sat in the courtroom’s public gallery today, went to go-go bars roughly 450 times between 2000 and 2007. During long binges, he used cocaine to stay awake and keep drinking, Assistant U.S. Attorney V. Grady O’Malley told U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson today.

And what does Mr. Soprano… er, I mean Mr. Clark say? It ain’t his fault, see? He’s got “substance abuse,” ya know? It’s a sickness I tells ya! I swear to God yer honor, it ain’t my fault!

Remember those dreamy days when the only union corruption we had to worry about was a few broken legs, a couple ghost payroll jobs, or some simple embezzlement? That was when unions weren’t trying to destroy local, county, state, and federal government.

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