Copyright 1994 Newsday, Inc.  
Newsday (New York)
September 9, 1994, Friday, NASSAU EDITION
SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. A55

LENGTH: 560 words

HEADLINE: Mason Tenders Union Accused of Racketeering

BYLINE: By Kenneth C. Crowe. STAFF WRITER

BODY:
A Bronx chiropractor charging $ 901 for physical exams, a mob capo's mother supposedly getting $ 600,000 more than her property was worth, and the top executive of a major contractors association sharing in kickbacks.

Those were a few of the examples cited by the Justice Department yesterday as it filed a civil racketeering suit in federal court in Manhattan aimed at imposing a court trusteeship on the allegedly mob-dominated Mason Tenders District Council of Greater New York. The government contends that at least $ 30 million has been drained from the pension and welfare funds covering 10,000 mason tenders and laborers in New York City in the past 10 years.

"We're bringing this case on behalf of union members, who do the most arduous, back-breaking work in the city of New York's construction industry," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Allan Taffet.

The suit, the result of a combined investigation by the FBI and the Labor Department's pension and welfare benefits division, comes three years after New York Newsday reported that the Mason Tenders' pension fund paid $ 24 million for a loft building on West 18th Street in Manhattan that had been purchased nine months before for $ 7.5 million. Millions more were spent on residential properties in Brooklyn - including a building that collapsed shortly after being acquired - providing windfall profits to the sellers.

A subsequent FBI investigation of the real estate deals resulted in indictments leading to prison sentences for seven men, including Frank Lupo, who had to resign as president of the district council, and James Messera, identified by prosecutors as a mob capo.

That series of real estate transactions was cited in the suit filed yesterday, along with a charge that in 1987 Messera's mother, Josephine Messera, using the alias Maria Buscemi, sold the Mason Tenders' welfare fund a building in Miami Beach for $ 1.45 million, $ 600,000 more than it was worth.

The fund subsequently spent $ 20 million on renovations to turn the Miami Beach site into a hospice, the suit said, adding that the renovation contractors kicked back at least $ 350,000 to then-district council president Gaspar Lupo, his son, Frank Lupo, and Joseph Fater, a fund trustee and then managing director of the Building Contractors Association Inc. Those named in the suit could not be reached for comment.

In addition, the suit said, the welfare fund paid Dr. Thomas Fitzgerald and firms in which he had a substantial interest more than $ 4 million over four years, at least half of it for physical exams. The Justice Department contends that Fitzgerald was charging $ 901 for physicals, which the union required for all members.

The suit also alleges that $ 200,000 in kickbacks were paid to Frank Lupo and Fater in connection with a $ 10 million loan to Parker Realty, a Boston real estate firm. Other alleged kickbacks were paid to union officials by Wilfred Davis, a lawyer, and Joseph Blau, an accountant. Blau declined to comment and Davis could not be reached.

Past FBI investigations uncovered evidence that after the death in 1989 of Gaspar Lupo, Messera awarded the presidency of the district council to Frank Lupo. When he was indicted and resigned, the presidency passed to his brother James Lupo. Both Frank and James Lupo were named as defendants in the civil suit.