July 26, 1998
In 1992, top leaders of the Laborers International Union of North
America hatched a plan to strengthen their union's power by creating a district council
that would consolidate all the union locals in upstate New York.
The problem was that the district was little more
than a front for organized crime, according to the federal government and
union officials.
A federal grand jury in Rochester looking into mob influence in
the Laborers has made the district council one of its key interests. "There has been
a fairly longstanding grand jury in upstate New York,'' confirmed David Roscow, a union
spokesman at the Laborers' Washington, D.C., headquarters.
From a union view, a district council could be a potent force in
negotiating with companies and governments from Plattsburgh to White
Plains, from Buffalo to Albany. But from the mob's standpoint it could dominate small
union chapters and control millions of dollars in worker training and pension
funds.
As the U.S. Justice Department and union insiders depict it, the
district council plan as originally conceived was to dip into the paychecks of some 13,000
laborers who do the most basic work on construction projects, from digging ditches to
hauling bricks. The money, 25 cents an hour, according to William Shannon, business
manager for the Oswego Laborers local, would easily surpass $3 million a year.
The money would underwrite jobs for mob associates at two training
centers, one in Buffalo, the other in Glenmont, on property owned by the Albany-based
Laborers Local 190, according to Robert Brown, business manager of the
Rochester local, and a 212-page complaint drafted by the Justice Department in 1994
detailing corruption in the union nationwide.
Among those at the center of the original plan was the Albany
local business manager Samuel Fresina, according to the draft federal complaint.
According to the draft complaint, "bosses of
the Buffalo LCN (La Cosa Nostra) family had long discussed the creation of a ... district
council in the areas of New York State outside of New York City, to ensure that the
Buffalo LCN family kept control of all (Laborers) activities in upstate New
York.''
Fresina, a close friend and supporter of Albany Mayor Jerry
Jennings, was chosen to head the new district. The president and secretary-treasurer was
Peter Gerace, president of the Buffalo local and, the federal draft complaint noted,
son-in-law of Joseph Todaro Sr., identified by the U.S. Justice Department as Buffalo's
top crime boss.
Fresina declined to comment for this story. He has not spoken
publicly about the government's allegations or other problems he has within the union
since he and other members of the Laborers state political action committee board were
accused late last year of giving union money to a mob associate.
According to Justice and a former union official, the appointments
of Fresina and Gerace were ordered by Samuel J. Caivano, the International's vice
president from New Jersey and an associate of the DeCavalcante and Genovese crime
families, and then-LIUNA president Angelo Fosco, also accused in the federal
draft complaint of having mob ties. But ultimately, said the former union official, who
spoke on condition of anonymity, it was Joseph Todaro Sr. who approved of Fresina, whom he
had met in 1980s.
Several large Laborers locals resisted the arrangement, among them
the Rochester union. "Nobody wanted to be tied to Buffalo's mob,''
said Brown, who said he feared his members would have had to pay some $400,000 a year to
the council to underwrite mob patronage.
The district plan called for consolidating the training of
laborers into two regional centers. One center was in Buffalo, home of
LIUNA Local 210, controlled, according to the Justice Department, by the Todaro family,
and the other in Glenmont.
Built in several stages, the Glenmont training center and
adjoining union hall cost more than $5 million. Fresina's critics, pointing to the huge
conference room and the spacious lobby with marble walls and a huge bronze-colored union
seal, call it a palace.
Though critical of Fresina's role in the district council, Brown
said he doubts Fresina instigated it. Stressing he had no personal knowledge one way or
the other of any involvement between Fresina and the Buffalo mob, Brown said
his opinion is that, "He just did his job. Sam was just a puppet in all this.''
Although the draft complaint identified Fresina as "an
associate of the Buffalo LCN family,'' he was not named as a defendant, nor was he accused
of any criminal activity with respect to the district council or otherwise.
After the Justice Department presented to union leaders its
212-page draft complaint detailing the alleged mob influence of the Laborers union across
the country, the union agreed to set up an internal but independent process, run by former
federal officials from the FBI, U.S. Attorney's office and the Justice
Department's organized crime unit. The unit investigates and holds hearings on
racketeering, mob association and ethical breaches.
Since then, several dozen leaders have been pushed out nationwide,
and Fresina himself is among those facing removal for his role in payments made to a mob
associate by the state Laborers political action committee.
According to the internal union action against them, Fresina and
other members of the Laborers PAC board breached union ethics when they
paid $221,000 in PAC funds in 1996 to Salvatore Lanza, a former official with the Mason
Tenders District Council in New York City who was expelled from the union because of
association with the Genovese crime family. Lanza was also administrator of the PAC, and
was ordered fired from that post, too, by Robert Luskin, the internal union lawyer who
prosecutes corruption cases. The board, however, argued that it had to buy out Lanza's
contract or face a costly lawsuit.
A hearing officer found the board members guilty
of ethical violations of union regulations, which could lead to their removal from office
if their appeals fail.
The district council operated for about two years until it was
scrapped in 1994, when federal attorneys hit the Laborers with the draft complaint and
threatened legal action if the union didn't take steps to purge itself of mob influence.
If the appeal succeeds, however, the district council is likely to
resurface, even with the grand jury probe under way. Fresina, according to a knowledgeable
source, already is talking with the international's president, Arthur Coia, about resurrecting the district council. Roscow said that, properly done, the
council could give the Laborers locals more power, particularly in
negotiating contracts.
"We are still trying to put that together,'' confirmed
Roscow. "This is what we do. It makes stronger bargaining.''
How the council will be viewed this time is so far uncertain,
given the union's 70-year legacy of mob influence. Nationwide, investigations over the
past three years have forced out about 70 officials, according to union statistics.
Independent elections were held for national union posts for the first time
in 1996. Coia himself is facing charges of mob association dating back
to the 1980s and early 1990s.
Luskin said the reform process is working, but he acknowledged it
will take time to root out mob influence.
"They've got a line of succession that looks like the U.S.
Cabinet,'' Luskin said. "Just picking these guys off one at a time is not a guarantee
of success long-term.''
Copyright
1998, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y