Coia Pops Up As Hot Topic In N.Y.
Senate Race
By Scott MacKay, Katherine Gregg and Russell Garland
State House Bureau
Arthur A. Coia, the Rhode Islander who is the embattled president
of the Laborers' International Union of North America, has become a lighting rod in the
unusually nasty early campaign sparring in New York between Republican U.S. Sen. Alphonse
D'Amato and Geraldine A. Ferraro, a candidate for the Democratic Senate nomination.
Last Monday, the day Ferraro announced her candidacy, D'Amato
aides told reporters that she was linked to the Laborers, a union federal investigators
have described as mob-influenced. Ferraro's campaign fired back, saying
that D'Amato has received campaign contributions from the same union.
D'Amato's aides also accused Ferraro of having a "social
relationship" with Coia. The D'Amato camp cited a 1996 birthday bash Coia threw for
Ferraro at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
In a brief interview at the elegant birthday party, which was held
at Chicago's Field Museum, Ferraro said: "I'm delighted to see Arthur." And she
dismissed the allegations that Coia was influenced by organized crime figures,
saying: "It seems any time there is an Italian-American in a position of prominence
there are these allegations."
The Mafia attack line is nothing new for Ferraro, the only woman
who has been a major party vice-presidential nominee (dust off your old 1984
Mondale-Ferrao buttons). During both her vice-presidential candidacy and a 1992 Senate
campaign, Ferraro was dogged by allegations that her husband, John A. Zaccaro, had
organized-crime ties.
For his part, Coia last week suggested that D'Amato, who is of
Italo- American descent, was using Ferraro's Italo-Americn descent to
unfairly tar her. D'Amato, Coia wrote, owes "all Italian-Americans" an apology.
Coia faces federal charges that he associated with mobsters and
allowed mob-influenced union officers to hold key union positions. If the charges are
proved, Coia would be ousted from the presidency of the 750,000-member union.
Last July, D'Amato returned $5,000 in Laborers' Union contributions.