Further, NLPC encouraged the U.S. Department of Justice to follow the lead of their Canadian colleagues. Specifically, Justice should admit that LIUNA’s so-called “internal reform effort” is a failure and should take over the scandal-ridden union before its court-recognized authority to do so lapses on January 31, 1999.
“At least one law enforcement organization in North America wants to see justice prevail in LIUNA,” said NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm. “The so-called LIUNA ‘reform effort’ is a joke and failure. Janet Reno and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago should get their act together, take over LIUNA and oust Arthur Coia without further delay.”
“This is just another example that LIUNA’s in-house prosecutor,
Robert Luskin, isn’t doing
an adequate job,” added Boehm. “The only true way to clean up LIUNA
and have justice is for a full-fledged government takeover of this corrupt
union.” (For examples visit www.nlpc.org.)
The Toronto Star reported on December 15, 1998 that the Financial
Services Commission of Ontario has opened a fraud investigation into the
“finances and dealings” of the Labourers’ Pension Fund of Central and Eastern
Canada. Arthur A. Coia is one of the Fund’s five trustees being probed.
Coia is also the Fund’s chairman.
Investigators are probing a tainted 1989 land deal in which the Fund paid $23.7 million for a parcel of land that is now estimated to be worth $5 million according to the Star. But the Fund’s books list the value of the parcel at $28 million. The property is in Stoney Creek, Ontario. There were purportedly plans to have condominiums built, but there has be no development on the land. The parcel is owned by a company that is wholly controlled by the Fund. The Star said Ontario law and LIUNA’s own in-house conflict-of-interest rules stated that the Fund’s assets cannot be invested in a “corporation wholly owned or controlled either directly or indirectly” by any trustee.
The Justice Department’s 1994 draft RICO complaint stated, “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
[i.e. Arthur Coia], have been chosen, subject to the approval of, and have
been controlled by, various members and associates of organized crime.”
NLPC’s Organized Labor Accountability Project is investigating
and exposing corruption and abuses in the Teamsters, LIUNA, AFL-CIO and
other labor organizations. NLPC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit foundation
promoting ethics and accountability in government through research, education
and legal action. NLPC was a plaintiff in the lawsuit which succeeded
in opening the records of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Health Care Task Force.
Please visit www.nlpc.org.
Organized Labor Accountability Project