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Feds trying to tie union boss to mob
The racketeering trial of Arthur Coffey, VP of Miami's International Longshoreman's Association, began Sept. 21, with federal prosecutors saying they hope to break the mob's five decade-long stranglehold on waterfront activities.
But the job may be a tall order.
"Remember this about the mafia: They are a mirror image of capitalism," said Selwyn Raab, an author and former New York Times crime reporter. "They are diversified. That's why they last."
Miami resident Coffey, who prosecutors say is associated with the Genovese crime family, earned $367,000 a year as the chief of Miami's ILA. He was arrested in June 2004 and charged with extortion, conspiracy and mail fraud, according to a complaint in the U.S. District Court for Southern New York.
The ILA is a labor union comprising mostly workers on the piers along the East Coast and south to Texas.
Two co-defendants, ILA assistant organizer Harold Daggett and ILA Executive VP Albert Cernadas, were also named in the indictment. Cernadas has since pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy.
George Barone, an elderly South Florida resident and a former ILA VP and Genovese crime family soldier, testified for the prosecution against Coffey. Barone, whom Raab characterized as "the point man on the docks," also testified against Daggett - who presided over the union's New York-New Jersey maintenance local - and Paul Ricci, who prosecutors also say is a mobster.
Barone, who was succeeded by Coffey more than two decades ago as the ILA's top official in Miami, spent most of the 1980s in prison after being convicted of shaking down businesses at the Port of Miami. He testified that the Genovese family ordered him to stay out of ILA business.
"He was a big shot," Raab said, referring to Barone. "You can't go any higher."
Cernadas, 69; Daggett, 58; and Coffey, 62, are charged with diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars from workers' health and welfare funds to the Genovese crime family from 1996 through October 2004.
Ricci was added to the indictment in February. The trial may last a month.
Divvying up the spoilsReports that the organized crime died with John "Dapper Don" Gotti are widely exaggerated, according to Raab, who compares the mafia to a semi-military organization with "always replaceable parts."
"They are always around," he said. Especially in South Florida, which he called "open country."
"No family has exclusive rights to the territory," said Raab, who wrote Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires.
But two mob families have allegedly controlled several waterfront interests along the U.S. eastern seaboard since the late 1950s.
The Gambino family has controlled commercial shipping terminals in Brooklyn and Staten Island, N.Y., while the Genovese family has controlled those in Manhattan, New Jersey and the Port of Miami, according to federal prosecutor Roslynn Mauskopf, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
From the 1980s to the date of the superceding indictment, the boss of the Genovese family was Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, prosecutors said, adding that Daggett and Coffey captained "crews" whose geographic center historically was Harlem and the Bronx.
Daggett and Coffey became trustees of ILA's health care fund at its 1997 inception, though Coffey ceased being a trustee in 1999, prosecutors said.
Coffey was also president of ILA locals 1922, 1922-1 and 2062, ILA international VP and an executive board member of the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast Region.
As trustees, the defendants were required to approve contracts without regard to their own personal gains, but the indictment charges that Daggett and Coffey, plus others who weren't named, pocketed money for themselves and organized crime members.
They allegedly did this by placing and helping place organized crime associates in positions with the ILA and with the funds and companies using ILA labor. Prosecutors also allege contracts were awarded to companies that paid members and associates of organized crime for services.
ILA President John Bowers, according to news reports, will be called sometime during the trial to talk about a meeting at the Miami Beach Smith & Wollensky steakhouse, where Barone said he delivered the news that Daggett was the mob's hand-picked successor to head the ILA.
Coffey, who was arrested and booked in Miami, had his case moved to Brooklyn on June 29, 2004.
"The trial has gone so much better than expected that it is almost scary," said Gerald McMahon, Coffey's New York lawyer, who was interviewed by phone from his Wall Street office.
The government called several fund managers, but McMahon said he characterized their testimony as "great for the defense."
"That's the way it's been going for weeks," McMahon said, noting the court was on a break for the Jewish and Columbus Day holidays. Coffey flew back to Florida during the break, he said.
McMahon questioned the credibility of several government witnesses.
"One witness is a mass murderer and one an ordinary murderer," McMahon said he stated in court, referring to an FBI report alleging that Barone was responsible for 60 to 70 murders. "I said I didn't keep a scorecard, but that would make him a serial killer."
"That seems a bit high," Barone responded from the witness stand, according to McMahon's recounting of the exchange.
"A couple of more rats are coming in next week," he said of witnesses the government is expecting to call.
Coffey was voted out of office in April, McMahon said. However Coffey, Cernadas and Daggett were still listed as officers on the ILA Web site as of Oct. 3.
FBI surveillanceOne of the witnesses for the prosecution was FBI Special Agent Thomas Krall Jr., who said in court records that for seven years, he had been assigned to the agency's Genovese squad. The agent said he conducted surveillance, investigations, searches and debriefed members of the Genovese and other crime families.
The Genovese family is one of the five traditional organized crime families, also known as the mafia, operating in the New York area and throughout the United States, including South Florida.
It has the most sophisticated operations, Raab said. "The Genovese family has always been considered the Ivy League of the mafia."
In recent years, the mafia's attention has been on the Port of Miami and Broward County's Port Everglades, he said.
Coffey, a nephew of Genovese family member Douglas Rago, moved to Florida in the late 1970s to work at the piers in Miami, prosecutors said in the indictment.
Coffey earned separate salaries for each of his union positions.
The federal prosecution of ILA is a follow-up to the 2003 waterfront racketeering case that sent Genovese boss Gigante, his son Andrew and six cohorts to prison for two to seven years. Andrew, who was released July 1, also paid $2 million in restitution.
According to the extortion and wire fraud indictment, co-defendant Cernadas is an ILA VP who doubles as president of Local 1235 in Newark, N.J.
Robert Nardoza, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, declined comment for the story. ILA spokesman Jim McNamara said the case was "criminal and ongoing" and that a civil case, put on hold, likely would come behind it. He declined further comment.
"The mafia has always understood the way to flex muscle is by controlling unions," Raab said. "They are selling labor peace. It's easy to sabotage a port with wildcat strikes."
"Control comes from influence within unions to extort from companies, from management, through sweetheart contracts," Raab said. "Florida isn't a strong union state, but the ILA is a powerful union. The ILA has always been in partnership with corrupt business people, shipping companies, stevedores, container companies, transportation, and warehouses."
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