DETROIT — U.S. District Judge Paul Borman on Monday slashed by 18 months the prison sentence of former Fiat Chrysler labor chief Alphons Iacobelli, who had been serving a 5½-year term in federal prison for his role in the UAW corruption scandal.
The reduction to a four-year sentence, Borman said, was due to Iacobelli’s “significant post-sentence cooperation” in the ongoing probe as well as his good conduct in prison and the “significant negative impact” of the coronavirus pandemic in prisons.
He had been scheduled for release Sept. 8, 2023. He will now likely get released in May 2022.
Iacobelli, 61, had said the pandemic has curtailed family visits and has greatly reduced his “yard time” in prison in Morgantown, W. Va.
The government had requested his sentence be reduced to 52 months, while Iacobelli asked for a reduction to “not more than 36 months.”
Borman also recommended Iacobelli be considered for home confinement instead of halfway-house confinement near the “tail-end” of his new 48-month sentence. The Detroit News first reported news of the sentence reduction.
Iacobelli pleaded guilty in January 2018 to two charges related to a conspiracy to siphon millions from an employee training fund. Among his offenses, Iacobelli was accused of using training fund money to buy a 2013 Ferrari 458 Spider and two solid-gold Mont Blanc pens, each valued at $37,500.
He was also at the center of a 2019 lawsuit filed by General Motors accusing FCA of engaging in a “multiyear pattern of corruption … to undermine the integrity of the collective bargaining process and cause GM substantial damages.”
Iacobelli’s name came up more than 60 times in the 95-page lawsuit, which frequently cites evidence from his 2018 plea agreement.
Iacobelli was GM’s executive director for labor relations for more than a year and a half, according to his LinkedIn page. He was dismissed after he was charged with crimes committed when he was FCA’s vice president of employee relations.
To date, Iacobelli had received the longest sentence among the 15 people charged in the corruption scandal. Ex-UAW President Dennis Williams is scheduled to be sentenced this month, while ex-UAW President Gary Jones is scheduled to be sentenced in February.