Copyright 1993 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.  
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
April 11, 1993, SUNDAY, FIVE STAR Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A

LENGTH: 783 words

HEADLINE: MOB-LINKED FIRMS REPAIR TRADE CENTER

DATELINE: NEW YORK

BODY:
The rush to repair the crippled World Trade Center has benefited at least four companies affiliated with relatives of imprisoned godfather John Gotti or other organized crime figures. The job of towing cars from the devastated garage went to Gotti's son-in-law, a reputed mob soldier.   Major repairs are being made by a company that employs Gotti's nephew, the shop steward for a mob-linked laborers local. Emergency bracing is being installed by a firm whose president spent five years on the board of a company controlled by a reputed mob captain. And supplies are being furnished by a company founded by a Gambino family associate and convicted labor racketeer. Lloyd Schwalb, a Port Authority spokesman, said, "We faced a terrific emergency and hired people we think were the best to do the job. We have no control over who they may have associated with or have on their payroll. And not one of these people that you have mentioned did anything other than a superlative job." The repair contracts, many of which were not competitively bid, are expected to run into millions of dollars. But officials say they don't know how much has been spent so far because the bills have not come in. The Port Authority did try to cancel one contract because of a Gotti connection. But Jamaica Auto Salvage, owned by Gotti son-in-law Carmine Agnello, had towed 279 cars from the rubble before the authority acted. The Port Authority defended the contract, saying Agnello offered the best equipment and lowest price of three bidders - $45 a car. The two other bidders' prices were $95 and $175 a car. Some of the biggest repairs since the Feb. 26 blast have been by Turner Construction, which once employed John Gotti's brother, Vincent, a reputed capo, and now employs Vincent Gotti's son, Peter. Peter Gotti, 23, is a Trade Center laborer and the shop steward for Mason Tenders Local 23. Federal officials say the local is mob-linked because it was led, until a few years ago, by Louis Giardina, a convicted felon and reputed Gambino soldier. Turner Construction said it hired Peter Gotti in 1989, when it received a contract for construction at the Trade Center. That contract was expanded to include the blast repairs. "We took over a contract and took over a work force that was on that contract," said Beverly Benn, a Turner spokeswoman. Gotti has "been there since before we were there and he remains there," she said. Benn said that, under its contract, Turner must use members of Local 23. Port Authority officials disputed that, saying Turner is not required to hire Local 23 members, but said the local has customarily provided laborers at the Trade Center. Local 23 President Lawrence Giardina said Peter Gotti oversees wages and safety conditions for the union. Giardina, who succeeded his father, Louis, as president, did not have a phone number for Gotti. Peter Gotti does not have a criminal record, according to Bruce Cutler, the Gotti family attorney. A second repair company, Karl Koch Erecting, has an impressive resume that includes work on Giants Stadium in New York and now the bracing that supports the World Trade Center blast site. But Koch's president, John Daly, and a second principal of the company spent five years on the board of a company founded and controlled by Thomas Petrizzo, who is reputed to be capo of the Colombo crime family. (NOTE: THE FOLLOWING TEXT APPEARED IN THE THREE STAR ONLY) Petrizzo has never been convicted of a crime, but a mob informant told the FBI that Petrizzo was powerful enough to sign off on a mob execution for the Colombo family, according to court papers filed for the pending trial of reputed capo Thomas Gambino. Port Authority officials said they hired Koch Erecting hours after the blast, because the firm had helped build the Trade Center and was familiar with it. A fourth company, Miron Lumber of Brooklyn, a supplier of materials for the repairs, was founded by Julie Miron, a Gambino crime family associate convicted in 1987 of labor racketeering. Miron was identified by state investigators in 1989 as a lumber vendor "with organized crime connections." Jonathan Miron, a spokesman for Miron Lumber, said Julie Miron used to be an officer but now "has nothing to do with this particular location." Julie Miron is best known in law enforcement circles as the man who unwittingly sparked the late godfather Paul Castellano's problems with law enforcement. He told the FBI that Castellano loved to sit in the kitchen of his Staten Island mansion. The FBI then knew exactly where to plant its bug and the resulting "kitchen tapes" began the don's downfall and subsequent murder, ordered by John Gotti.