3 Gotti Associates Charged
Three associates of John Gotti were charged with racketeering yesterday, accused of running a citywide illegal gambling racket in New York that generated millions for the Gambino crime family. Ralph Mosca, his son Peter, and Joseph Passanante pleaded not guilty at their arraignment in Federal District Court and were freed on $250,000 bail.
Prosecutors Say Tapes Show Mob Infiltrating Carpenter Union
Secretly recorded conversations show how members of the Gambino organized-crime family infiltrated one of New York City's largest carpenters' unions, prosecutors say.
The tapes also disclose, they say, how systematic payoffs from subcontractors to union officials were funneled to members of the Gambino group.
On the tapes, according to affidavits submitted in the case, the carpenters' union officials often talked with subcontractors about ''accumulating juice'' and meeting for ''a cup of coffee.''
Those remarks, prosecutors say, were code words for extortion payoffs to union leaders and were part of a widespread pattern of labor racketeering and corruption uncovered in a two-year investigation of New York City's dry-wall and sheet-rock construction industry.
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Five high-ranking officials of the carpenters' union were indicted on Oct. 13 in Manhattan on state charges of extorting more than $100,000 over a two-year period. In court documents unsealed last week, prosecutors disclosed the evidence they had obtained through wiretaps, bugs, confidential informers and surveillance.
In the documents, including 1,100 tape recordings, that were turned over to defense lawyers in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, prosecutors in the case made these new assertions:
* An undercover informer taped a shop steward in the union, Local 257 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, Carmine Fiore, who was identified by the authorities as a ''soldier'' in the Gambino family, describing to subcontractors how mob figures would be ''silent partners'' in a company. Mr. Fiore also was heard explaining how bids were to be rigged with other subcontractors, the prosecutors said.
* Officials of Local 257 laundered, or disguised, illegal payments by making numerous deposits of $6,000 each at the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company branch at 131 East 23d Street, near Lexington Avenue. A Federal law requires that a bank notify the Internal Revenue Service of all transactions of $10,000 or more. John H. Meyers, a spokesman for Manufacturers Hanover, said there would be no immediate comment by the bank.
* Subcontractors were observed at meetings in restaurants, building lobbies and vans, giving envelopes to officials of Carpenters Union Locals 257 and 608, whose union jurisdictions cover different sections of Manhattan. Investigators said the envelopes contained illegal payments. Subcontractors made the payoffs, according to the indictments, so that they would enjoy labor peace and permission to violate union contracts by hiring nonunion employees at wages far below union scales.
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* In an effort to expand the inquiry, prosecutors negotiated in 1986 with John F. O'Connor, the vice president and business manager of Local 608, seeking to have him become an undercover informer. According to the documents and William J. Kelleher, Mr. O'Connor's lawyer at the time, he rejected the offer. Mr. O'Connor was one of the officials indicted last month. 'Snippets of Conversations'
Lawyers for the indicted union officials said the tapes and surveillance reports failed to provide incriminating evidence. ''They took snippets of conversations about cups of coffee and other innocuous conversations and meetings and implied that it was some kind of improper conduct,'' said Mr. O'Connor's present lawyer, John W. Mitchell.
Indicted on extortion and larceny charges with Mr. O'Connor were Martin Forde, a Local 608 business agent; Eugene Hanley, the president of Local 257, and Attilio Bitondo, the local's vice president. Also indicted on charges of soliciting bribes was Irving Zeidman, the second-highest official in the 30,000-member New York City District Council of Carpenters, the parent organization of all carpenters' union locals in New York City.
According to the court papers, agents from the the state's Organized Crime Task Force began the undercover inquiry and secret electronic eavesdropping and surveillance in 1985. Investigators said the inquiry stemmed from evidence of union corruption and mob infilitration provided by a confidential informer. Not Named in Affidavits
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The informer is not named in the court affidavits by Ronald Goldstock, the director of the task force. But defense lawyers identified him as Dominick Lofaro. Law-enforcement officials said Mr. Lofaro, in exchange for leniency, began undercover work for the task force in 1983 after he was arrested on a narcotics charge.
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Mr. Lofaro, in earlier court proceedings, was identified by prosecutors as an associate in the Gambino family. Law-enforcement officials said Mr. Lofaro also worked undercover in unrelated cases against the reputed head of the Gambino family, John Gotti.
The court papers said that on May 8, 1985, the informer secretly recorded a conversation with Mr. Bitondo and Fotis Dimopolos, a partner in the Jet Construction Company of Queens, about the use of nonunion workers. A court affidavit said the following conversation was overheard:
MR. DIMOPOLOS: I'd like to do some dry-wall, general construction.
Trouble when we were a painting company.
MR. LOFARO: First job - one more thing, he has all nonunion men, right?
MR. BITONDO: That can be worked out.
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MR. DIMOPOLOS: Whatever you tell me, I have to do.
Mr. Dimopolos has an unlisted telephone number and could not be reached for comment.
The affidavits said the informer taped a meeting at Tam's Social Club in Astoria, Queens, on July 22, 1985. At the meeting, prosecutors said, were Mr. Fiore; Ralph Mosca, who was identified in the court papers as a captain in the Gambino family; Mr. Mosca's son, Peter; Mr. Dimopolos, and a partner in his company, Spyros Fioravantes.
A task force investigator, Anthony Principo, said in an affidavit that the informer and the Moscas were to be ''secret partners'' in a new construction company with the subcontractors. ''In exchange for the payments to Attilio Bitondo, the union local vice president, the union will guarantee that the contractors will not be faced with labor problems, including interference by other union delegates or officials,'' Mr. Principo said.
On the tapes, Mr. Principo asserted, Mr. Fiore, the shop steward, said: ''Spiro's been around us long enough to know there is no room for a mistake because you make a mistake, you got to pay.''
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''You got to pay one way or another,'' Mr. Fiore continued. ''Hopefully it ain't physically. Ninety-nine out of hundred, it ain't never gonna be physically.''
Mr. Fiore did not return telephone messages left for him at Local 257's office at 157 East 25th Street. Ralph Mosca has an unlisted telephone number in the Bronx and attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.
Another task force investigator, Joseph J. Coffey, said in an affidavit that through a wiretap, the authorities obtained evidence that Mr. O'Connor had directed associates in February 1986 to break into the Bankers & Brokers Restaurant, which was being built at 301 South End Avenue in Battery Park City. The object, Mr. Coffey said, was to damage dry-wall installations because the restaurant owners had used nonunion employees without having made payoffs to officials of Local 608. 'Just Cleaned It Out'
On Feb. 28, 1986, the affidavit said William Holden, the chief steward for Local 608 at Battery Park City called Mr. O'Connor and this conversation was taped:
MR. O'CONNOR: Any news on that store down there?
MR. HOLDEN: Ah, they just cleaned it out Johnny; it's basically about 85 to 90 percent cleaned out.
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MR. O'CONNOR: There was just damage to the dry wall, was it?
MR. HOLDEN: That was all basically. Yeah, there was no electrical ripped out, or stuff like that, but 'twas in the wall.
On May 7, 1986, Mr. O'Connor was shot and wounded in what police officials said was a murder attempt. According to the court papers, Mr. O'Connor had been unaware that members of the Gambino family had a financial interest in the restaurant and that he was shot in retaliation for ordering the vandalism.
Mr. O'Connor has also been indicted on charges related to the vandalism and Mr. Holden has been indicted on perjury and criminal contempt charges in connection with his testimony before a grand jury about the vandalism. Target of Investigation
The court affidavits also disclosed that Paschal McGuinness, the president of the carpenters' district council, was a target of the continuing investigation and that his conversations were intercepted in court-authorized eavesdropping. He has not been indicted or charged with any wrongdoing.
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Mr. McGuinness did not return telephone calls seeking comment on the assertions that he was a subject of the inquiry by the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
The District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, said Friday that ''we are aggressively pursuing more leads in this case and other construction cases, and there may be more indictments.''
The prosecution is being headed by Robert Mass, an assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, in conjunction with the task force and investigators from the New York Office of Labor Racketeering of the United States Department of Labor.
