Copyright 1994 Newsday, Inc.  

Newsday (New York)
December 28, 1994, Wednesday, NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION
SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. A33

LENGTH: 466 words

HEADLINE: Feds Take Broom to Mason Tenders

BYLINE: By Kenneth C. Crowe. STAFF WRITER

BODY:
U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White yesterday announced a consent decree in a civil racketeering case that is expected to sweep dozens of organized crime members and associates out of 12 Mason Tenders union locals in New York City and on Long Island.

Arthur Coia, president of the Laborers International Union of North America, the Mason Tenders' parent union, agreed to what is apparently the toughest consent decree ever negotiated. Coia said the agreement is an indication of his commitment to a union "free of wrongdoing."

The settlement covers the New York Mason District Council, its 12 locals, 6,000 members and their seven pension and welfare funds. The consent decree settles a racketeering suit, filed in September, which charged that more than $ 50 million of the union's pension and welfare funds had been spent by organized crime members and union officials over the past seven years - with the help of lawyers, accountants and investment advisers. The multimillion-dollar exploitation of the Mason Tenders' pension funds was uncovered in a Newsday investigation in 1991.

Under the agreement, U.S. District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet will appoint a monitor and an investigations officer to four-year terms with the goal of transforming the Mason Tenders into a democratic union. The monitor can expel from the union anyone with proven ties to organized crime.

Among the evidence gathered by Assistant U.S. Attorney Allan Taffet for the case was an admission by Frank Lupo, the district council's ex-president, that Genovese organized crime family capo James Messera was the real boss of the Mason Tenders. Other documents filed with the court indicated that Queens Locals 13 and 37, Manhattan Locals 30 and 104, Bronx Local 59 and Staten Island Local 51 were dominated by the Genovese crime family; Manhattan Local 23 by the Gambino crime family, and that Queens Local 46, Brooklyn Local 48 and Melville Local 66 were under the influence of the Luchese crime family. Bronx Local 33 and Brooklyn Local 47 were the only unions not cited as controlled by organized crime.

Confronted with the evidence of corruption, Coia last month removed the district council's officers and appointed former federal prosecutor David Elbaor to run the union. Elbaor will remain in control until the court-appointed monitor conducts a rank-and-file election of new officers. In the past, delegates from the locals elected the officers.

Among the unprecedented terms of the consent decree are that the court-appointed monitor is empowered to reject candidates for office and to bring civil suits to recover the pension and welfare fund monies, and union members who lose their appeals on the monitor's disciplinary decisions will be required to reimburse the court for legal costs and expenses.