LIUNA Reformer
Could Use Some Reform Himself
Ken Boehm
Chairman-National League and Policy Center
There they go again. The preposterous
attack on your paper by Laborers' International Union of North America
spokeswoman Linda Fisher was just another episode of Union spin ("LIUNA has worked
hard to clean itself up," Letters, Nov. 16)
Miss Fisher says LIUNA's "internal reform
program is not only working, but working well." The real issue is for whom, or what,
is it really working?
The so-called LIUNA internal reform effort is led
by the ethically challenged Robert D. Luskin. ON May 8, Mr. Luskin agreed to forfeit to
the U.S. Justice Department $245,000 of $674,296 he received in
"legal fees" from his client, Stephen A. Saccoccia. Saccoccia was a Rhode Island
precious metals dealer convicted of money laundering for two South
American drug cartels and La Cosa Nostra crime family in New England. Saccoccia was
sentenced in 1993 to 660 years in federal prison, fined $15.8 million and ordered to
forfeit all laundered money. Former U.S. Customs Commissioner Carol B. Hallett identified
Saccoccia a "an associate" of the Raymond L.S. Patriarca crime family in Rhode
Island and also as a "contract employee of the [La Cosa Nostra]."
LIUNA President Arthur A. Coia, from Rhode Island,
is no stranger to the Patriarcas. In 1981, Mr. Coia was indicted on
bribery and racketeering charges along with his father, the late Arthur E. Coia, and the
late Raymond L.S. Patriarca. The charges were later dropped on a technicality.
Additionally, this is what the Clinton Justice Department said about Mr. Coia in its 1994
draft anti-racketeering complaint: "LIUNA has been infiltrated at all levels by
corrupt individuals and organized crime figures who have exploited their control and
influence over the union for personal gain and to the detriment of the union. LIUNA union
officers and employees at all levels, including the general presidency, have been chosen,
subject to the approval of, had have been controlled by, various members and associates of
organized crime."
The most troubling issue is Mr.
Luskin's connection to all this and his virtual admission of guilt earlier this year. Mr.
Luskin said he received 45 gold bars from Saccoccia valued at $505,125 and $169,171 in
wire transfers from a Swiss bank account. The Justice Department, led by
former U.S. Attorney Sheldon Whitehouse, went after Mr. Luskin and four other Saccoccia
attorneys for the money paid to them out of profits laundered by Saccoccia. The U.S.
Supreme Court has held that attorneys cannot be paid with funds acquired as the result of
the crime. Mr. Whitehouse charged Mr. Luskin with "willfull blindness" in
accepting the gold bars and wired funds. After all, Mr. Whitehouse noted , what Mr.
Saccoccia received involved precious metals (including gold) and Swiss bank accounts. Mr.
Whitehouse further stated, "Luskin had reasonable cause to know that these fund were the proceeds of Saccoccia's money-laundering activities. Luskin, however,
chose not to know the true origin of these funds."
According to Mr. Whitehouse, the
$169,171 in wire transfers from Switzerland were made between Dec. 4, 1994, and Feb. 23,
1995. Nov. 4, 1994 , was the day the Justice Department delivered the 212 page draft
anti-racketeering complaint to LIUNA, which included allegations that Mr. Coia had
colluded with organized crime for a long time. The agreement by which LIUNA averted a
government takeover, and for which Mr. Coia was able to keep his job, was signed Feb. 13,
1995. It was during this period that Mr. Coia hired Mr. Luskin to negotiate LIUNA's case with the Justice Department. The confluence of these dates, this money
and these individuals should at the very least raise serious questions about Mr. Luskin
and the trust the Justice Department has placed in him to run an honest LIUNA internal
reform effort.
Miss Fisher's spin of LIUNA is far too rosy. Many
LIUNA dissidents from all over the country know first-hand that their corrupt union has
improved little, if any, under the reform efforts of Mr. Coia and Mr. Luskin. Mr. Luskin's
suspicious dealings raise more concerns, and the only answer is a full-fledged government
takeover of LIUNA before its court-recognized authority to do so lapses on Jan. 31, 1999.
END