BESIEGED LABOR LEADER BUILT POWER BASE
BRICK BY BRICK
Albany Federal court ruling will decide if
Laborers Local 190 business agent Sam Fresina keeps his job
JAY JOCHNOWITZ Staff writer
For years, Sam Fresina quietly but effectively built Laborers
Local 190, taking the union out of its corner in the plain brick Labor Temple in Albany
into a new sprawling $4 million headquarters in Glenmont.
As his union moved up in the world, its influence -- and Fresina's
-- also grew.
Today, Fresina, 53, helps control a political
action committee that last year doled out more than $250,000 to
politicians across the state, including Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Jerry Jennings.
Fresina, who is Local 190's elected business manager, is more
comfortable behind the scenes than in the public eye. But in recent months, Fresina has
made headlines amid allegations that the New York State Laborers Political Action
Committee, of which he is a member, paid $221,000 to an reputed associate of organized
crime.
The controversy so far doesn't seem to have hurt
Fresina's relationship with his most notable local political ally.
``He's one of the most level-headed union leaders I've worked
with,'' said Jennings. The mayor and his fiance, Maryann Severino, dine occasionally with
Fresina and his wife, Kathleen, at spots like Lombardo's and Cafe Italia.
Fresina is part of an organization that has been under close
government scrutiny since 1995 because of a federal racketeering investigation.
Last month, a union hearing officer found that Fresina and three
other PAC board members violated union ethics rules in making the
$221,000 payment in 1996 to Salvatore Lanza, the PAC's former administrator. Lanza had
been fired after he was ousted from his own union, the Mason Tenders District Council in
New York City, for racketeering and associating with organized crime figures.
Asserting that his client would be vindicated, Fresina's attorney
insists the payment was made only to buy out Lanza's contract, rather than risk a lawsuit
and damages as high as $1 million if Lanza pursued a case.
But if his appeal in U.S. District Court fails, Fresina under
union rules will be forced out of office in the 1,000-member local and
the PAC. He would join a number of officials who have been ousted since 1995 from the
Laborers Union.
With the appeal and a union election at stake, Fresina did not
return repeated calls for comment, and his attorney, Eugene Devine, said his client
doesn't want to be interviewed.
Depending on who's talking about him, two distinct pictures emerge
of Sam Fresina.
One is of a likable fellow, a family man, a
committed but practical union advocate and a civic-minded individual.
Jennings, who has known Fresina since he worked summers as a
laborer in the 1960s, calls him ``a regular guy'' who spends his free time enjoying his
grandchildren.
But the U.S. Justice Department and foes in his union paint a
darker side. Within Laborers Local 190, some say he has carved out a personal fiefdom,
ruling it from a $4 million hall he built in Glenmont.
``He wanted to be king,'' said Carmen Francella, who plans a bid
for Fresina's post in the local.
Federal officials have depicted Fresina as a player who was
hand-picked by organized crime and corrupt union leaders in an attempted
takeover of upstate Laborers' unions.
In 1994, Fresina was named in a draft Justice Department complaint
of corruption and racketeering within the Laborers International Union of North America.
The draft document claimed that union officials and the Buffalo Mafia attempted to take control of all the Laborers unions outside New York City through an
upstate district council. Fresina, along with Peter Gerace, son-in-law of reputed Buffalo
mob boss Joseph Todaro Sr., were installed as top officers, according to the government
document.
The complaint was not acted on after the national Laborers
officials agreed to clean up the union.
And Fresina's allies say they don't believe he is mixed up with
the mob.
``Sam wasn't involved with none of these
people,'' said said Jerry Dunn, a retired Local 190 member, who helped Fresina campaign in
1983. ``The sad part of it is, there's shady spots in the union ... but Sam isn't one of
them.''
An Albany native, Fresina seized power in the union in 1983 by
unseating Peter T. Mirabile, son of Laborers boss Charles T. Mirabile, whose family had
run the local since the 1940s. The Mirabiles had taken Fresina out of the trenches, making
him secretary-treasurer. He and his slate swept the elections, promising to improve a $20
million pension fund and more fairly hand out jobs.
Union insiders say Fresina has built the pension
fund up to $100 million, despite the loss in the early 1990s of $3 million in a Florida
real estate investment that saw a Connecticut union leader convicted of taking bribes.
Fresina was not implicated.
In the early 1990s, Fresina pulled Local 190 out of the Labor
Temple on Third Street in Albany, moving into the expansive office and training center on
Wemple Road in Glenmont. Supporters say it's an example of Fresina's vision; opponents
call it a show of his extravagance.
``When I first joined the union, Laborers was a
pick-and shovel thing,'' said Jerry Dunn, a retired Local 190 member, who helped Fresina
campaign in 1983. At the Labor Temple, Dunn's said, the union's training area was ``just a
little hole in the wall.''
Francella calls the union headquarters Fresina's ``castle,'' a
place rarely used by rank-and-file members. Francella said the building, with a $1 million
office budget, a spacious conference room and a $300,000 gym, was Fresina's attempt to
keep up with wealthier unions.
Fresina earns at least $83,000 in salary from the local. But,
according to Francella, that is only a fraction of his union earnings.
Francella said he has been unable to obtain an accounting of Fresina's pay from the PAC,
the international union and other union entities.
Fresina drives a union-leased Lincoln, and lives in a modest
condominium on Constitution Drive in Glenmont, a street that includes a banker, a
prominent attorney and a hospital board chairman.
``He's the leader of the band, and he tries to hold himself that
way,'' Dunn said.
But Angelo Sasso, vice president of the union retirees, said Fresina has cowed people into voicing support because he controls who gets work.
Sasso, who also joined Fresina's campaign for business manager in
1983, said Fresina embittered many old-timers, some of them with pensions of $350 to $400
a month, by requiring them to pay into their health insurance.
``He's trying to make himself look like a saint,'' Sasso said.
``He ain't done nothing for us.''
As a member of the statewide PAC board, Fresina last year helped hand out hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions
-- as much as $15,000 a check -- to an array of Democratic and Republican campaigns in the
state Senate and Assembly. Republicans Pataki and former Sen. Michael J. Hoblock Jr., and
Democrat Comptroller H. Carl McCall, were among those who benefited from the PAC's
largess.
In Albany, Fresina was one of Jennings' first major supporters,
steering more than $15,000 in Laborers' funds to the mayor's war chest since 1993.
Fresina and his union workers have teamed up with Jennings and the
city on a $6 million federally funded cleanup of lead
in hundreds of low-income homes. Two of Fresina's cousins work for City Hall, one as
Jennings' executive assistant. His son, Samuel, is a firefighter and head of the Albany
Permanent Profession Firefighters' Association. Two other children, Anthony and Kelly,
work for Local 190.
The respect extends beyond City Hall. In 1992, he received the
Golden Lion Award, the Order of the Sons of Italy's highest honor. Past recipients include
Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd, Bishop Howard Hubbard and U.S. Rep. Michael McNulty.
Aaron Dare, head of the Albany Urban League, said Fresina stood by his group last year in a dispute with other unions
over a minority apprenticeship program that the league created. Fresina took 10 graduates
into the union, Dare said, including an ex-convict who has since bought a home and
reunited with his daughter.
``While I don't know him on a personal level, he certainly earned
my respect,'' said Dare, whose office wall includes a picture of an inner-city ``Midnight
Basketball'' team sponsored by Local 190. ``He struck me as a very honest, up-front,
if-he-didn't-like-it-you-knew-it straight shooter.''
Copyright 1998, Capital Newspapers Division of The
Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y