Former Teamster President Implicated in Cocaine Trafficking

By Kevin Robinson in News on Feb 5, 2009 6:00PM

In a new federal indictment returned on January 22, former president of Teamsters Local 743 Robert Walston is alleged to have "conspire[d] . . . to knowingly and intentionally distribute and possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance, namely, 5 kilograms or more of mixtures and substances containing cocaine."

Walston was president of the South side local representing clerical and blue-collar workers at the University of Chicago and Rush University medical centers at the time that he is alleged to have traveled between Chicago and Texas to purchase the drugs. He resigned abruptly in 2007. Since then, local union membership have elected new leadership that ran on a platform of reform.

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