Two former top officers of AFSCME Local 2620 have admitted they treated union credit cards like personal platinum passes, pleading guilty Friday to federal wire-fraud charges tied to roughly $270,000 in unauthorized spending on luxury goods. The case has landed hard in Sacramento political circles because the local represents about 5,000 California state health and social-services workers.
Federal prosecutors brought the charges after a Department of Labor probe and an investigation by the Labor Department’s inspector general, culminating in an April 2025 indictment that accused the pair of using union-issued cards for personal purchases, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Pleas and the Purchases
Shukimba Carlis, the former president of Local 2620, and Sofia Herrera, the union’s former treasurer, admitted in their plea agreements that they used AFSCME credit cards for personal shopping, including a $2,453 splurge at a Louis Vuitton store in Beverly Hills and a $2,033.02 tab at a Tory Burch in Glendale, as reported by The Sacramento Bee.
Prosecutors say the spending spree was not a one-off lapse in judgment. According to court filings, the card misuse stretched from March 2021 through September 2022 and involved repeated personal charges on the union’s dime. The balances on those cards were later paid from the union’s checking account, effectively routing members’ money toward those luxury buys.
Union Response
Current Local 2620 leaders say they clawed the money back and shored up their financial controls in the aftermath. "The legal process has played itself out and the union recovered all misappropriated funds," union representative Carl Miller told The Sacramento Bee. Members and trustees had been pressing for answers about officer spending as the investigation unfolded, and the case has become a cautionary tale about what happens when that scrutiny is ignored.
Union Rules and Oversight
On paper, AFSCME Local 2620’s policies are clear. The union’s rules on credit card use ban personal purchases outright and require documented approvals and receipts for every charge, according to the local’s policy materials. Those guidelines, reviewed by the board during the probe, became central to trustees’ questions about both the disputed spending and how records were kept.
AFSCME Local 2620 spells out the authorization steps and documentation members are supposed to follow, a framework that now serves as a measuring stick for what went wrong in this case.
Penalties and What’s Next
Carlis and Herrera each pleaded guilty to wire-fraud charges, a felony that can carry up to 20 years in federal prison, according to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. A federal judge will set sentencing dates and decide on any restitution or forfeiture, applying federal sentencing guidelines alongside the terms of the plea agreements.
