Dec/01/03 WATER FRONT STILL MOBBED UP
BAYONNE, N.J. -- The headquarters of New Jersey's most notorious union is a white-brick building on a blue-collar block. Flanked by a deli and a hair salon, its ornate front windows feature an anchor and rope motif.

The custom-made glass is opaque; it's impossible to peer inside International Longshoremen's Association Local 1588. But that hasn't stopped law enforcement from trying.

Local 1588 was historically so corrupt that mob enforcers were unnecessary, according to one veteran investigator. Kickbacks, extortion and fraud became as routine as a Labor Day picnic at the local, long a lucrative outpost for the powerful Genovese crime family.

In 1954, when Marlon Brando starred in the Oscar-winning "On The Waterfront," one of 1588's delegates was already under investigation for taking kickbacks from its members.

Nearly 50 years later in this weathered waterfront city, the cast of characters on the genuine New Jersey docks remains consistent: Local 1588's president and seven others with union ties face a racketeering trial this spring.

The group demanded cash and kickbacks from dozens of union members in return for promotions, overtime and job training, authorities said. The local's leadership "blatantly and repeatedly" associated with the Mafia, added an infuriated federal judge _ who then appointed a former NYPD commissioner as the union's boss.

Robert McGuire, who ran the nation's largest police force from 1978 to 1983, predicted it will take at least three years to de-Genovese the corruption-riddled local.

"There's been mob dominance and domination for many, many, many years," says McGuire, who took over this year. "When it becomes very pervasive, it's like rooting out a cancer in a body."

Longtime ILA spokesman James McNamara complains that prosecutors "paint the whole ILA with a brush that's not accurate," ignoring its honest workers.

Over on Kennedy Boulevard, headquarters of Local 1588, one of those honest workers smokes a morning cigarette. Union veteran Vincent Sorrenti pauses to greet a visitor.

"Nice to meet you," Sorrenti says, his monotone matching his seen-it-all-before demeanor. "No comment."

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The president's job at the 440-member local comes with an office, salary, benefits _ and lately, criminal charges. The last three heads of 1588 all wound up as defendants.

The latest was John Timpanaro, indicted for racketeering and extortion just months after his January 2002 installation. Timpanaro, at age 45 the head of a new generation at the local, faces trial with his co-defendants in the spring.

His predecessors, John Angelone and Eugene G'Sell, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to embezzle union funds. The two admitted to forcing union employees to surrender huge chunks of their no-show job salaries to the Mafia.

Typically, authorities say, the union catered to the mob over its membership.

Organized crime's waterfront control is multifaceted _ from extorting a Staten Island trucking firm to fixing bids on the ILA's prescription drug plan. The latter scam netted $400,000 for the Genovese and Gambino families, and led investigators to a $3 million mob extortion plot against action movie star Steven Seagal.

At Local 1588, Angelone and G'Sell were installed by the local's real power: Genovese associate Joseph Lore, who took over in 1988 from legendary New Jersey mobster John DiGilio.

Lore, a waterfront hiring agent for a Bayonne company, was an old-school mobster, a hard case who once threatened to take a blow torch to Angelone's crotch.

For nine years, the reputed Genovese family member received up to $2,000 per week through the no-show job scam _ a grand total of $821,000 looted from Local 1588. The Lore era ended quietly in July, far from the Bayonne docks, when a Trenton judge sent the 64-year-old to jail for 70 months.

DiGilio's exit was more dramatic. In 1988, two weeks before his loan-sharking sentencing, the body of the ex-middleweight boxer was fished out of the Hackensack River with two bullets behind his ear.

His body was decomposed, but his killer thoughtfully wedged one of the slain mobster's credit cards between DiGilio's legs to make identification easy.

The hit came four months short of the union's 50th anniversary _ a brutal reminder of what went awry at Local 1588 after its launch in September 1938.

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Organized crime's interest in the waterfront predated Local 1588, and the attraction was obvious _ boatloads of money. The New York-New Jersey docks remain the busiest on the Eastern seaboard, with an estimated $86 billion in waterborne cargo moved through in 2001.

The corruption often increased the cost of goods shipped through the port, effectively creating a "mob tax" passed on to consumers, McGuire says.

Yet there was no bloody war when the Genovese family claimed the New Jersey docks in the late 1960s. George Barone, a veteran mob killer employed by "Fat Tony" Salerno, represented the Genovese crew at a peaceful mob sitdown with the Gambino family.

Barone's pedigree was impeccable. He was a member of the Jets, the Hell's Kitchen gang immortalized in "West Side Story," and a contemporary of infamous mob boss Vito Genovese.

Barone became both an ILA official and a made man who handled his murderous work with elan, notching a dozen killings along the way. When he met with the Gambinos, an understanding was reached: The Brooklyn and Staten Island waterfront belonged to the Gambino family; Manhattan and New Jersey went to the Genoveses.

Everybody was happy, and everyone was soon to get richer.

By the mid-1970s, DiGilio was installed at Local 1588, taking advantage of its location _ far from the Genoveses' Manhattan base, and under law enforcement's radar.

"John was a maverick," says Lawrence Lezak, law director for the watchdog Waterfront Commission. "He was a big moneymaker for the Genovese crime family."

DiGilio operated in anonymity until 1981, when he was publicly linked with 1588 secretary-treasurer Donald Carson, the son of a Bayonne cop and a 22-year veteran longshoreman. By then, the pair was extorting money for labor peace, authorities said.

DiGilio's murder neatly coincided with Carson's criminal conviction, leaving a leadership void quickly filled by other Genovese associates. Local 1588, along with five other metropolitan ILA locals, was targeted by "Operation Marionette" _ a federal probe into the Mafia's puppet-like control of the unions.

In 1992, Local 1588 acknowledged what federal authorities had long suspected: it was a mob-run racketeering enterprise, and had been for years. The union signed a consent decree promising its officers would sever all illegal ties.

Agreeing to the decree was the union's president, future felon Eugene G'Sell.

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The deal had little effect on Genovese control of Local 1588. The Timpanaro indictments, a decade later, convinced federal Judge John S. Martin to name McGuire as union administrator in January 2003.

For McGuire, it was reminiscent of his successful 1992-97 assignment to clean up the Gambino-dominated Garment District in Manhattan. This task was more daunting, as McGuire discovered that organized crime was "a way of life" on the waterfront.

"There are those individuals who would rather keep the old regime in place," he says.

McGuire recruited a forensic auditor and a pair of veteran investigators to help out at 1588. One was Tom Gallagher, a balding, burly veteran of 27 years with the Waterfront Commission.

Like Barone, Gallagher knows the docks' history. He remembers, for example, "Benny Eggs" Mangano and "Johnny Sausage" Barbato, two Genovese hoods, collecting a reputed $25 on every container unloaded.

He's watched, too, as mob influence over the union became less violent, more subtle.

"It's not like the old days," Gallagher notes while touring the Bayonne waterfront. "They realize that action draws heat and makes headlines."

Lezak agrees, saying the mob families declared a hiatus on waterfront hits shortly after the DiGilio slaying. But other approaches endure.

"I can walk up to you, and you know who I am, and I don't have to say a word," Lezak says. "I'm right there and you know what I'm there for."

Under McGuire, some things have already changed at the local. In the past, potential members were recruited by friends or a relatives. McGuire's group, in soliciting 100 potential new members, found half through local employment agencies.

The McGuire team also provided the membership with a detailed accounting of its annual budget _ right down to the penny. "One member said, `That's the first financial statement I've heard in 35 years,"' McGuire says.

Local 1588 is still battling in court to get McGuire booted. James A. Cohen, attorney for 1588, said the government takeover was nothing more than a patronage deal to benefit McGuire and his associates.

Back on the docks, the indicted Timpanaro returned to the Bayonne waterfront as a foreman after serving a 60-day suspension, his presence a counterpoint to the arrival of McGuire, Gallagher and company.

His trial next spring will go a long way toward determining the local's future.

"If there's an acquittal, that's a whole different ballgame," said Waterfront Commission executive director Thomas De Maria. "Not that the investigation was for naught, but obviously the only message would be you can get away with it."