In a significant ruling on February 9th, a federal judge sentenced Terrie Brady and Ruby George to prison for embezzling approximately $2.6 million from the Duval Teachers United, the teachers union they led for nearly 25 years in Jacksonville, Florida. Each woman misappropriated around $1.3 million by fraudulently claiming more vacation days than they had earned.
Brady, aged 70, and George, now 82, had admitted to the scheme in 2025, which involved “selling back” thousands of vacation days to the union. Their actions impacted the organization, which represents over 5,000 members, significantly undermining trust and financial stability.
During an emotional court hearing, numerous supporters highlighted the positive contributions both women had made throughout their careers. Nonetheless, Chief U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard handed Brady a 27-month prison sentence. George, who appeared in court in a wheelchair, received a sentence of one year and a day in prison, followed by six months of home confinement.
Judge Howard emphasized that the sentences were necessary to uphold legal standards and ensure justice. “While their past good deeds do not go unnoticed, accountability is paramount for the theft that spanned a decade,” she stated, underscoring the seriousness of their offenses.
Howard said she was “firmly convinced” that nothing more lenient for either woman would serve justice and meet the standards spelled out in federal law.
“It does not erase all the other good things that Ms. Brady and Ms. George did,” the judge said. “But there does have to be accountability for a decade of stealing.”
Attorneys for both women asked for compassion, with Brady’s counsel, Hank Coxe, seeking 31 months of probation with 18 months of home detention for his client. Brady has already paid back $1,328,695 she received for non-existent vacation time. But she and George are both held responsible for repaying the full $2.6 million the union lost, so Coxe suggested Brady could pay $1,000 a month to chip away at the balance.
“It is not an overstatement to say that Terrie Brady devoted her life to the welfare of Duval County Public School (DCPS) teachers and employees,” Coxe wrote in a sentencing memo that called her sentencing for cheating DTU “tragically sad and ironic.”
The man who prosecuted Brady and George described no tragedy, just wrongdoing in his narrative of the crime, arguing the women “stole at will ― treating DTU’s treasury like their own piggy bank.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Coolican quoted a Latin adage about corruption of the best being worst to argue that Brady needed to be put behind bars.
“While holding positions of great influence and trust, despite having loving friends and families, and despite wanting for nothing, Teresa Brady and Ruby George stole,” Coolican told Howard in his own sentencing memo. “They stole for years. They stole millions. They covered it up and would not have stopped if they had not been caught. They need to be punished.”
Charges against the pair were filed more than a year after a 2023 raid of DTU’s San Marco offices by federal agents who carried off boxes of records and computers.
In his memo, Coolican referred to Brady as a “corrupt union boss” and George as her “chief lieutenant.” Brady pleaded guilty in October 2025 to single counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering, the four charges detailed in a 14-count indictment from December 2024.
George pleaded guilty in August 2025 to conspiring to commit wire and mail fraud and single counts on aiding and abetting wire fraud and aiding and abetting mail fraud.
Those crimes carried potential sentences of up to 70 years behind bars for Brady and up to 60 years for George.
A summary from an interview prosecutors and FBI agents had with George in June 2025 said George claimed “it was an open joke in the [DTU] office that Brady did not really have any leave days to sell.”
Because George’s job included keeping track of union employees’ (not members’) leave balances, “when Brady needed money she would say something along the lines of I need to sell some days,” said the summary, which Coolican attached to his sentencing memo. “Brady would tell George how much money she needed after taxes and then George would initiate a payment for the equivalent value of leave days. Brady directed George to do the same for herself.”
For example, the summary said that Brady sold $20,000 worth of leave time when she needed roof repairs, and George assumed the two facts were connected.
“George said it was easier to go along with Brady,” the summary said.
This article was originally published by the Florida Times-Union.
