LABORERS (LIUNA)
How an FBI Sting Operation Exposed Providence's Construction
Racket see
original article See Providence Bulletin Journal Stories
on Laborers
It rivaled some of the best scripts of "The Sopranos," only
this was real life. A nearly three-year-long federal sting
operation had exposed the workings of a network of Rhode
Island construction businesses, union officials, and
mobsters. The character bringing down the house of cards,
however unwittingly, Matthew Guglielmetti, age 56, was at
once a Mafia made man who'd done prison time, a Laborers'
shop steward, and an "employee" of an FBI front company.
The Providence Journal, in a highly detailed investigation
published in late April, recounted how it all went down.
On the morning of this past January 20, federal, state and
local law enforcement agents, search warrants and cardboard
boxes in hand, entered the Arthur E. Coia Building at 226
South Main St., Providence, headquarters of Local 271 of the
Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA). The
edifice was named for a powerful official of the
international union whose son, Arthur A. Coia, headed the
union during 1993-99. Agents also raided Capital City
Concrete in neighboring Cranston. Earlier that day, they
had arrested Guglielmetti and a pair of associates in nearby
Johnston.
Construction contracting in Rhode Island long has operated
through underworld deals. In 1988 a state police
intelligence report described the extent to which New
England's Patriarca crime family controlled local unions,
especially the Laborers. Edward "Mulligan" Romano, a top
lieutenant in the Patriarca mob, along with his two
brothers, Joseph and Louis (all three are now deceased),
pretty much ran Local 271. The report read in part:
"(Edward) Romano, because of his union power and organized
crime position, has used this influence to settle disputes
between construction companies and the union workers. In
return, Romano is reported to have received kickbacks from
the construction companies."
The Laborers in many cities had been shot through with
corruption; the criminal racket that was Local 210 in
Buffalo alone merits a book. By the mid 90s LIUNA was on
the verge of being slapped with a massive federal RICO
suit. But the younger Coia, by now the union's
international president, used his friendship with President
Clinton and other top White House officials, to broker an
arrangement: LIUNA would clean its own house and in turn
the feds would call off the prosecution. A former federal
prosecutor, Robert D. Luskin, became the union's in-house
investigator/prosecutor. He took down dozens, if not
hundreds, of mobsters and mob associates within the union.
Arthur A. Coia was investigated, but survived the process.
A union disciplinary hearing cleared him of ties to
organized crime. He was, however, nailed for tax evasion,
for failing to report having taken delivery of three
high-end Ferraris from a Rhode Island dealer that leased
vehicles to union executives. In late 1999 he agreed to
step down and make way for ally Terence O'Sullivan to assume
the reins of LIUNA.
But evidence had continued to mount that LIUNA still was in
the hip pockets of mobsters. Sometime early this decade the
FBI decided that a good way to infiltrate the union and its
friends in the mob and the construction industry, at least
in the Providence area, was to set up a fake company.
Guglielmetti, a native of Cranston, would be their mark. He
was hardly unknown in law-enforcement circles. He'd spent
the first half of the 90s in federal prison on a
racketeering conviction. After his release, the old habits
didn't die easily. In 1997 he wound up in a Pawtucket
hospital with two stab wounds. Guglielmetti declined to
talk to police, saying it was "family policy" to consult
with a lawyer first. That same year, cops wiretapped and
nailed a mob gambling ring. One of its leaders, Rudolph
Sciarra, mentioned a character nicknamed "Good-Looking," a
reference to Matthew Guglielmetti. Guglielmetti was not
among the dozen and a half charged in that case.
Guglielmetti all this time still belonged to LIUNA Local
271. It wasn't supposed to be that way. But because of a
paperwork error in Luskin's office, he was never thrown
out. Instead, he resigned from the local, took a job with
another local in the Boston area, and not long after that
rejoined Local 271. In need of a job, he got one as a
steward for Capital City Concrete. The company in 2003 was
chosen as the minority contractor for a $5.8 million parking
garage for the Kent County Court House in Warwick.
The owner of Capital City was Lori DeRobbio; her husband
Albert DeRobbio was a company vice president. Mrs. DeRobbio
had been around the concrete industry for a long while. Her
father, Tom Manni, founded Atlantic Concrete Forms in
Cranston, where she was chief financial officer during
1986-99. Following her father's death, she started Capital
City Concrete. By 2002, her company was pulling in some
$2.5 million in business, thanks in large part to the
company's eligibility (being headed by a woman) for
preferential "minority-group" treatment. By the end of 2003
the company had been selected for $7 million in contract
work for the $300 million tunnel to prevent sewage from
overflowing into Narrangansett Bay. In negotiations with
unions, Lori DeRobbio got some heavyweight consulting in the
form of Arthur A. Coia.
She didn't know it at the time, but her new employee,
Matthew Guglielmetti, was a silent partner for another
contractor: the federal government.
In April 2002 the FBI had set up a straw company, Hemphill
Construction, and opened for business in a shopping plaza in
nearby Johnston, R.I. Its partners were two men with the
aliases "Mike Jameson" and "Mike Sullivan." The pair
launched Hemphill with the help of fourth-generation Rhode
Island contractor Gerald Diodati, who, for unspecified
reasons, stopped doing business with the company sometime in
2003.
Sometime after Hemphill opened, one of the undercover agents
was introduced to Guglielmetti. Though the circumstances of
the meeting were unclear, according to court records, the
made man became a silent partner. A FBI affidavit revealed
that Guglielmetti started taking money from the company,
"including a share of the profits from laundering what
Guglielmetti believed were drug proceeds through the
undercover business."
In the fall of 2003, as work on the Warwick garage was
progressing, state court officials were pressing local
contractors to turn over its payroll records in order to
conduct criminal background checks. Capital City Concrete
was one of the last to comply. About a week before
Guglielmetti stopped working on the garage, the company
turned over the records. Nothing turned up in the state
files; apparently, Guglielmetti had unspecified charges
expunged. But the cops knew who he was and where to find
him.
In October 2003 Rhode Island and Massachusetts police
detectives stopped by the construction site to see
Guglielmetti. They came to tell him that his voice, and
that of New England crime boss Luigi "Baby Shacks"
Manocchio, had been picked up by federal wiretaps in
Massachusetts. They had been discussing with some Boston
wise guys collecting gambling debts mediating a mob
dispute. In December a court administrator, Paul Petit,
recognized Guglielmetti's name from his previous job at the
state prison, and ran another criminal check. Again,
nothing turned up. Petit decided to visit the site. But
Guglielmetti wasn't working there anymore. Local 271 had
gotten him a job at another Capital City Concrete site, a
pumping station in West Warwick.
By this time the FBI had set its sights on Capital City
Concrete. Hemphill's "Mike Jameson" approached Lori
DeRobbio, indicating a desire to invest in her business; it
was none other than Guglielmetti who introduced her to him.
"He's (Jameson's) a nice guy, he's educated, you're
educated, and he's looking to break into the business," she
recalled Guglielmetti saying. Capital City and Hemphill
Construction wound up bidding together on a clubhouse
renovation job in Warwick, but didn't get the contract.
In December 2003 Albert DeRobbio met with Jameson, Diodati
and Arthur Coia at the Providence Marriott. Hemphill
Construction wanted Coia to represent them as a consultant.
Coia replied that he'd have to think about it. One year
later, in December 2004, Lori DeRobbio went to see Jameson
in a Coia-arranged meeting. The place looked suspiciously
staged, and she pulled out of the deal, using her recent
marital problems as the pretext. But Gulgielmetti was
convinced Hemphill could provide him with some needed cash,
specifically $67,000 to guard a nonexistent shipment of
cocaine passing through Rhode Island en route to Canada.
The phantom deal, captured on audio and videotape, was
sealed on January 18, 2005. And so was Guglielmetti's
fate. Two days later, when he walked into the Hemphill
office to collect his payoff, he got handcuffs instead.
Matthew Gugliemetti this March agreed to plead guilty to
cocaine trafficking charges. He is expected to receive 12
years in prison. If he sings, he might wind up taking down
some bigger fish in the Laborers' union with him. At this
point, he doesn't have much to lose. (Providence Journal,
April 24).
Laborers for JUSTICE© 1997-2005 All
Rights reserved. Not for republication on the internet
without permission.
Jim McGough,
Director
6304 N Francisco Av.
Chicago, Il 60659
773-878-1002 (tel)
773-409-1503 (eFax number)
laborers@comcast.net