APPELLATE COURT REINSTATES
RACKETEERING INDICTMENTS
Friday, November 18, 1983
From Herald Staff and Wire Reports
An Atlanta federal appeals court Thursday reinstated a Miami grand
jury's racketeering indictment accusing four New England men of corruptly profiting from a
labor union's welfare plans.
In March 1982 in Miami, U.S. District Judge Lawrence King had
dismissed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act indictments against
Laborers International Union of North America official Arthur A. Coia; his son, Arthur E.
Coia; then- Rhode Island state Rep. Albert J. Le Pore; and labor fund trustee Joseph J.
Vacarro.
The four were indicted in September 1981 on charges of using their
influence to illegally funnel union insurance and service contracts to companies they set
up for themselves.
The defendants were accused of charging union members for the most
expensive insurance available and allegedly "thereafter looted the insurance premiums
through the use of kickbacks, payoffs, unearned salaries and fees and improper personal
expenses."
The evidence was presented to the Miami grand jury because several
Florida benefit plans were allegedly abused in the scheme, which purportedly began in
1973.
When he dismissed the charges, King said that the indictment
mentioned no act of conspiracy occurring within the five-year limit
government prosecutors had to bring the indictment.
In reinstating the indictment Thursday, the 11th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals said that racketeeromg cases require "delicacy and
circumspection" in considering indictments handed up by grand juries. Judge Gerald
Tjoflat said King should not have thrown out the indictment simply because he doubted the
government could prove when some offenses allegedly had occurred.
All content © 1983 THE MIAMI HERALD