Reportedly, the box-office employees took bribes from the brokers in return for handing over thousands of prime baseball tickets, including seats to the 1999 World Series. The brokers would resell the tickets or funnel them to street scalpers at large markups. A disgruntled fan tipped off officials after he recognized a guy selling tickets behind a box-office window as the same guy who had previously scalped a ticket to him outside the stadium.
Greenwald's brother Richard, a union member, was also indicted. Both worked in the Yankees box-office. The 15-month probe resulted in charges ranging from misdemeanor bribing to second-degree grand larceny. [N.Y. Post 7/25/00]
ASBESTOS WORKERS (HFIA)
Ohio Boss Sentenced for $34,000 Theft
On July 25, U.S. Dist. Judge John M. Manos sentenced Tracey Shugar,
ex-secretary of Int'l Ass'n of Heat & Frost Insulators & Asbestos
Workers Local 3 in Cleveland, to three years of probation for her $34,472
union embezzlement. He ordered Shugar be confined to her home during the
first six months of the sentence.
Shugar's attorney, Kreig J. Brusnahan, told Manos that "the lure of easy money and the temptation to gamble" caused her to steal from the union. Shugar pled guilty to one count of union embezzlement in Apr. 2000. Brusnahan said Shugar paid back $11,239 before pleading guilty and planned to pay the rest back immediately following sentencing. In the plea deal, Shugar admitted stealing the funds from Oct. 1996 to Jan. 1999 through salary checks and diverting funds that should have been deposited into union accounts. She used the funds for herself and her family.
"It hurts that someone whom you put so much trust in does this," said Dennis Maloney, one of four union members who was at the sentencing. "This disrupts everything."
Patrick Corrigan, a union member, said the sentence was fair, but he would have liked to see her fined. "I don't want to see anyone go to prison. But some of the guys wanted to hang her," he said. [Plain Dealer 7/26/00]
LABORERS (LIUNA)
Boss Coia's Prosecutors Honored
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alex Whiting and Ernest DiNisco received the
Distinguished Service Award for their prosecution of Arthur
A. Coia, ex-boss of the Laborers'
Int'l Union of N. Am., who pled guilty to tax fraud in Jan. 2000. The
prosecutors were among 13 from Boston and 190 nationally who were honored
in an awards ceremony July 28 in Washington by Atty.
Gen. Janet Reno.
"I am extremely proud of the extraordinary work done by members of the U.S. Attorney's office," said U.S. Atty. for the Dist. of Mass. Donald Stern. "These awards are given to very few persons nationally, and the number received by individuals in our office indicates the very high level of commitment and professionalism we always hope to achieve." [Boston Herald 7/30/00]
POLICE UNIONS (PBA)
New Jersey Boss Pleads Guilty to Theft
Michael Opalenik, president of Policemen's Benevolent Ass'n Local 175
in Long Beach Island, N.J., pled guilty July 14 to stealing at least $500
from the local for personal use between Jan. 1998 and Dec. 1999. He admitted
withdrawing funds with a debit card from an account that included union
dues and public donations. The full amount of the theft will be determined
in a yet-to-be scheduled restitution hearing, at which time Opalenik will
be ordered to reimburse Local 175 and pay for a $10,000 audit that was
conducted. The Ocean County prosecutor's office estimates that the theft
was between $28,000 and $31,000.
The discrepancy in PBA funds was uncovered by newly appointed treasurer John Hill in Jan. 2000. Several withdrawals, checks and monthly statements were unaccounted. As president, Opalenik was the only one who had access to the bank card. The local estimated that $25,000 was missing and arranged for an internal audit to determine whether the funds were mishandled.
The local also asked ex-treasurer Jeff Ehlers to resign. Long Beach Township Police Capt. Leslie Houston said the township isn't conducting any investigation into Ehlers.
The prosecutor's office recommended that fund-raising groups be barred from having debit cards; that funds raised through solicitations be separated from operations accounts; and that annual audits be mandated. Local 175 has already disposed of the debit card. "A debit card probably leads to too much temptation. It is too easy to access cash," said Local 175's acting president Jerry Falkowski.
Several years ago, the local had separated funds received through donations from operational funds into two different bank accounts. And the local's bylaws require that its Board of Trustees review the books twice a year. An annual audit is also required. But, there were no audits of the 1998 and 1999 books nor were biannual reviews for those two years conducted. Opalenik, who also served as the local's financial secretary, was supposed to arrange the audit. Falkowski said he doesn't know if the trustees were even aware that they had to review the books. Falkowski said Opalenik, who was president for 17 years, was the "heart and soul" of the local and members never had reason to question anything he did. [Asbury Pk. Press 7/15, 7/19/00]
ROOFERS (RWAW)
New York Bosses Allegedly Bribed $200,000
George D'Andrea and Joseph Famularo, Sr., both business agents for
United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers & Allied Workers Local 8 in
N.Y., were indicted July 25 by Manhattan Dist. Atty. Robert Morgenthau
for their alleged roles in a bribery ring. The two allegedly received over
$200,000 in bribes in 1999. They were two of the thirteen people and six
companies charged with participating in a racket that allowed the companies
to reap large profits from government contracts by using nonunion workers.
Morgenthau said the alleged scheme was a criminal enterprise headed by Joseph Delancey, a nonunion roofing contractor who operated a number of different roofing companies. He routinely bribed Local 8 officials in exchange for labor peace. In return for bribes, the companies were able to place nonunion roofers on union projects awarded by a number of N.Y. agencies, including the School Construction Auth., N.Y. Dormitory Auth., Transit Authority and Port Auth. of N.Y. and N.J. The bribes allegedly totaled about ten percent of the cost of the project, which ranged in size from $50,000 to $500,000. The scheme ran from Oct. 1997 to Nov. 1999.
It "demonstrates the insidious nature of labor bribery schemes by which corrupt union officials line their own pockets at the expense of their hard-working members and the agencies who pay for these projects," Morgenthau said.
Also charged was Famularo's son, Joseph Famularo, Jr., who owned one of the roofing firms involved. Delancey, the Famularos, D'Andrea and four others were charged with enterprise corruption under N.Y.'s Organized Crime Control Act and face up to 25 years in prison each if convicted. Five others were charged with falsifying business records and scheming to defraud and could receive prison terms of up to four years each if convicted.
Investigators contend that Delancey and others generated phony payrolls, paid workers reduced wages in cash and laundered profits from the scheme through a company in Passaic, N.J., called Central Cleaners, which prosecutors say was in fact a licensed check-cashing store and money order distributor and not a dry cleaner. In 1999, the bogus cleaners reportedly laundered $1 million. As envelopes of cash were passed across the counters of Central Cleaners, reportedly more than two dozen investigators watched and wiretapped the transactions. [Newsday, N.Y. Times, Daily News 7/26/00]
GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES (AFSCME)
Jury Convicts Diop, Lubin for Fraud
Two more bosses of the Am. Fed'n of State, County
& Mun. Employees' Dist. Council 37 in N.Y. were convicted July
25 on charges that they helped rig a contract ratification vote in 1995.
Albert A. Diop, who was AFSCME Local
1549 president, DC37 vice-president and AFSCME int'l vice-president, and
Martin Lubin, ex-DC37 associate director,
were convicted by a N.Y. jury. Diop faces up to four years in prison and
Lubin seven. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 7. DC37 has suffered over
thirty indictments and over twenty guilty pleas in the last two years.
Diop was convicted on charges to defraud and falsify business records. Lubin was convicted on charges to defraud and forgery. While Lubin only was accused of helping rig the ratification votes, Diop has been charged with stealing over $2 million from his local and using a penthouse apartment at DC37 headquarters as a personal residence, while billing the local for rent as a business expense. That trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 17. Reportedly, Diop's annual salary from just Local 1549 was $206,000.
During the two-week trial, several witnesses linked Diop and Lubin to the vote fraud. Mark Shaplo, who had been Lubin's top assistant, said that he and Lubin marked bogus ballots together in an elaborate secret operation. Shaplo, who has pled guilty to vote fraud and embezzlement, testified that they switched pens, alternately using their left and right hands, to avoid the appearance that the same person was marking all the ballots.
Lubin's attorney Pamela Hayes said that she would file a motion to overturn the jury verdict. Hayes said there were errors in the instructions to the jury and improper remarks in the prosecutor's summation.
"This is not an anti-labor prosecution. It's a pro-labor prosecution. The victims were the union members," said Manhattan Dist. Atty. Robert Morgenthau. He said "they show you can't rig elections and get away with it." [BNA 7/31/00, N.Y. Times, N.Y. Post 7/26/00]
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ADDITIONAL BRIEFS NOT INCLUDED ON THE FAX EDITION OF THIS UNION CORRUPTION UPDATE:
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QUOTABLE QUOTE
"It...raises questions about what Gerald
McEntee, chief of the [AFSCME] - DC37's parent body - was doing while
all this was going on. The top guns at AFSCME would have us believe that
DC37 is being cleaned up now. McEntee has had his guy Lee
Saunders running things here since the scandal broke. But while Saunders
has changed some faces on DC 37's executive committee, he has done little
to change the system that gave rise to corruption. ...Saunders has treated
the reformers as adversaries. Makes you wonder how much Saunders wants
to clean up and how much he wants to quiet down."
- Columnist Juan Gonzalez, Daily News, July 18, 2000.
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