Tampa, I know you will think I am crazy but I agree with Rooster about this. Law enforcement in Buffalo is very corrupt—Esspecialky in Niagara County and the city of Niagara Falls. (I live in Niagara County.) It is even more corrupt at the federal level. And unfortunately, our local papers take everything the Feds say as gospel truth. If you would like verification about how corrupt the Buffalo Field Office is, contact Buffalo area lawyer William Gary Iannaccone. He can detail how the Buffalo Mob and the FBI in WNY have been strange bed fellows since the 60’s. He is working to build a case against the government. According to his research the FBI used the Buffalo Mob and their drug trafficking for the MK Ultra program. He has evidence of some really strange and scary shit—including experimentation on poor Italian Americans with mob help.

Nickle City, I appreciate the response and the insight... but come on...

Feds are pretty incorruptible compared to city and state cops. Nowhere in America in the past 50 years has the mob been able to infiltrate the feds at such a high level as you are indicating. As well as this, even city and state cops in most cities are relatively clean because there's so much regulation and guidelines that it's pretty hard to cultivate a decent number of seriously corrupt cops. This is why there really isn't that much mafia-police corruption nowadays - none at a federal level whatsoever, and very scattered cases at a city level.

Also, the mob weren't able to stop the fuzz in the 80s and 90s. Following that, even Todaro crime family 'truthers' like Giacomo and Rooster concede the family was decimated following the tailend of the 90s. So how can you possibly try and say that fed-level corruption is going on in the weakened Buffalo mafia today. Think about it: the Gambinos & Genoveses, with 250+ members haven't been able to infiltrate feds. How and why would a family with 25-35 active members (this seems to be the ballpark that Giacomo and Rooster are suggesting) be able to corrupt the feds of all people.

Thanks for the response NickleCity.

Buffalo's Unraveling Nexus of OC, CIA, FBI & Nazi-type Experiments
May 29, 2009 at 6:09am
By William G. Iannaccone.
NLG Buffalo Chapter

Like the 1937 founders of the National Lawyers Guild I'd like to carry on in the tradition of an antifascist ethos, born of personal experience.

"Son, there are things that people made me do. I don't have the heart to tell you. I want to leave you these papers. You're going to have to figure it out for your self. No one is going to help you. This way I'll know you'll be alright."

My mother spoke these words of wisdom as she handed me a file box brimming with documents giving me clues to my own family's once hidden past, before her passing in 1978.

The pieces of the puzzle fell neatly in place to reveal a clarion scenario. After years of investigation and pro se litigation I'd gathered the evidence and family testimonials to prove my father, a WWII veteran, and my self, were unwitting victims of the CIA's MK-ULTRA behavioral science program.

Buffalo, N.Y, hometown of OSS veteran "Wild Bill" Donovan, I found to be a city steeped in a mysterious unraveling nexus of organized crime; CIA; FBI, and Nazi-type experimenters.

In the book "Hide In Plain Sight," Leslie Waller chronicles the court cases of Thomas Leonard of Buffalo who ran into a legal brick wall in efforts to contact his children, who along with his estranged wife and hoodlum lover Paddy Calabrese went into hiding from November 1967 to July 1975 in Pres. Richard M. Nixon's premier witness protection program: Like Leonard, I too ran into legal road-blocks to thwart my cause for truth and justice.

The witness protection program was hatched out of Buffalo's and the nation's first OC Strike Force. Two men in Justice put the pilot Strike Force idea together and sold it to Attorney Gen. Ramsey Clark (1967-69): (1) Robert Dolan Peloquin a veteran of the "Hoffa Squad" and (2) Henry Peterson who was later caught in the Watergate squeeze. The FBI refused to assign personnel or open their files to the Strike Force (Waller 131-32).

On Feb. 27, 1967, in the N.Y. Chautauqua County Jail, Paddy Calabrese reportedly started singing to John J. Honan, Asst. Erie Co. DA and Buffalo PO Samuel N. Giambrone, providing the inside scoop on the Magaddino empire (Waller 141).

Waller writes the Buffalo Strike Force was advised by "elements within the Justice Department…One (of whom) who'd been in OSS and the CIA," wanted Calabrese in deep cover in a small Michigan town. Joe Fino, mob capo, had reportedly told Giambrone to keep Calabrese off the streets of Buffalo (Waller 187).

On May 8, 1967 – FBI raided Snowball's at Hamphire and Grant. Thirty-six were taken into custody for consorting with known criminals, including Natarelli, Randaccio and Stevie Cino.

The next morning all charges were dismissed. End of Episode. Beginning of speculation. What was the FBI doing, staging a raid it knew would end in dismissal?

Waller says Giambrone would not speculate about the mysterious FBI raid anymore than why Hoover was soft on the mob. (Waller 162-63).

In 1968 Magaddino and six associates were indicted on charges of gambling and racketeering. The Funeral Chapel in Niagara Falls was bugged by the FBI from 1962-65. Judge John O. Henderson ruled against the government. He told the FBI in May 1973 unless they produce untainted evidence the case would be dismissed. The FBI did not. Henderson threw out the indictments and was upheld by the USCA 2nd Circuit on May 8, 1974.

Six days later the U.S. Supreme Court freed thousands of OC figures indicted and found guilty of narcotics charges on grounds of tainted evidence.

Attorney Gen. John N. Mitchell had broken the law by not personally signing authorizations for wire-taps of evidence leading to the convictions. Waller pens, "Whether that was deliberate or accidental oversight is not known to this day" (Waller 254).

Italian authorities report from 1950 -60 Magaddino headed a ring that brought heroin from Italy and to Canada and Eastern US, bringing in 150 million a year (Waller 254).

Calabrese moved to Reno, Nevada in 1969 and stayed till 1974 visiting Buffalo three or four times during that time. Tom Leonard who was closest to the action is quoted, by Waller, as saying "You see what a lie this all was? The government claiming their lives were in danger and them going back and forth to Buffalo?" Waller concedes, "The question was inescapable was Paddy in danger or wasn't he?" (Waller 263-66).

Waller concludes: "There is a vast and growing overlap between the activities of all our intelligence organizations and the activities of organized crime. Frequently, as in the Bay of Pigs affair, the personnel are identical. The same agents serve two masters and are later recycled as hit men against Castro's person… As the Watergate currency, laundering indicates, not only does organized crime make cash contributions to the law establishment, but the establishment also tethers to organized crime" (Waller 275-78).

In a Buffalo News article on Feb. 2, 1989, by Michael Beebe, it was first reported that Local 210 member Ron Fino worked for the CIA form 1965 to 1969 as a SUNY at Buffalo student informer to infiltrate the Students for a Democratic Society. Ron's father Joe was a mob capo, supra. The CIA recruited students as part of Operation Chaos, an unauthorized domestic spying op in the late 1960's.

In the article Fino said, "he was feeding it (CIA) information on Students for a Democratic Society" who were organizing anti-Vietnam War protests. Curiously enough, scores in SDS swallowed up on campus LSD and many went from pragmatic left-wing radicals to wide-eyed, soul-searching, fringed avatars.

Millions of dollars of CIA research grants were paid to professors and psychological researchers at Universities across the U.S to experiment with psychedelic drugs (ABC News Closeup: Mission Mind Control, 1979 transcripts pg. 6, 25, &34).

Incidentally, in the same Buffalo News article, Fino said he used his Mafia connections to help the CIA look for possible mob connections in the John F. Kennedy assassination.

My investigations juxtaposed with my experiences aims to prove: (1) Fino not only infiltrated Students for Democratic Society for the CIA in the late 1960s at the University of New York at Buffalo in operation Chaos to provide information on SDS, but also to mentor provocateurs. And that, Fino used his underworld connections to target this student organization for neutralization, by the facilitation of drugs on campus to disorganize, discredit in the press, and politically disengage.

And that: (2) my father and I were subjected to a more individual specific yet related CIA parallel behavioral science project called MK-ULTRA that took place in stages over the years and was most active during the late 1960s, as described as follows:

My father, Peter, was unwittingly confined to the VA Canandaigua Hospital by my mother in 1948 soon after he obtained a legal separation. My mother wanted to be a mom: I was born in 1952, their only son. According to my elder cousins' testimony my father was given sub rosa psychoactive substances in his food since 1954. They further testify from 1957-1958 he was subjected to severe electro-shocks that resulted in symptoms of left hemisphere brain damage. According to my cousins, my illiterate mother was tricked into to signing consents for these unusual and cruel experiments.

In April 1953 the CIA began its clandestine mind control program code-named MK-ULTRA, authorized by Directorate Allen Dulles. The use of psycho active drugs for inhumane psychological experimentation has its roots in the ilk of mescaline studies conducted at the Dachau Nazi concentration camp, under the inauspiciousness of Dr. Hubertus Strughold. Severe, long-lasting, debilitating electro-shock was also a part of the MK-ULTRA psy-ops arsenal.

My father was released to the home environment in 1966 at the peak of his trauma. I was fourteen. I went from an unruly teacher's pet to a truant. The Family Court ordered me on probation May 8, 1968 one day after receiving an injection, by Bernard H. Smith, M.D., Head Neurologist-who appeared to me like a specter of Mengele- at Erie County Medical Center. In spite of a court order for the complete records, granted Dec.24th, 1985, filed in NYS Supreme Court, Index H 50258, (file incomplete) ECMC has yet to comply.

In Aug. through Dec.1968, during a Family Court ordered placement to ECMC, I was subjected to a salvo of a cruel type of pseudo-psychoanalytical torture and sexual molestation under hypnosis, by an Episcopalian Chaplin/therapist Lawrence B. Hardy.

In Aug. 1969 Hardy wrote in my medical records "Talked to pt's (patients) mother's attorney a Mr. Musarra who seemed like a pretty good fellow & was willing to go along w (with) our treatment plan."

Arthur F. Musarra, my mother's family lawyer and lawyer for Local 210 had in July 1965 devised reciprocal wills and waivers for my mother and father waving their rights against each other's estate in favor me.

Those wills, according to Surrogate Court Registration card 70602 were filed in the Erie County Surrogate's Court on Oct.15, 1965. Since, my father was declared incompetent in 1960, by William J. Regan, Erie Co. Justice, my father's waiver was fraudulent. Those wills, filed under my mother's name, were removed by Charles D. Wallace, Esq. on May 1, 1972. The Surrogate Court, to this day, refuses to acknowledge those 1965 wills (my father's will) in violation of SCPA section 2507 and Penal Law section 190.30-Concealment of a Will. My father passed away in 1992.

The 1040 Individual Tax Returns for my father and mother show that from 1956 – 1971 no social security number was used for my father. However, from 1973- 1976 my social security number is substituted for my father's. 1972 is missing.

My mother left me pictures of her taken in front of Hurrah's Casino in Las Vegas, in 1972, with her cousin Philip (Cheech) Napoli, of S.F. Cali. (whose father had known ties to Magaddino) and "Bucky" Ciminelli. See pic of my mum doing the laundry in Las Vegas https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/9059c887-f509-4fca-b318-bf61fabcce93

I'd bet it all: that under the shrewd esoteric eye of the Hugh's – Magaddino co-dominion- one million greenbacks of my father's VA disability funds invested in US Savings Bonds, since 1948, got lost in the wash.

And, I'd bet my Uncle Joseph Pezzino's John Hancock, on a forged piece of the rock, meant for me, negotiated at the M&T Bank, was just the tip of the ice berg. Joe hung out with Charlie Caci, a/k/a Bobby Angelli and other Local 210 insiders, including Ron Fino.

Surrogate, William J. Regan (who as County Judge declared my father incompetent in 1960 and did not appoint a committee) failed to do so again in the Surrogate proceedings in 1979.

Surrogate, John J. Honan (who as DA in 1967 reportedly got Calabrese to sing, presided over a 1981 Settlement Decree that was made prior to discovery and a full accounting made of the assets belonging to the estates of my mother and father. The decree was made without my knowledge and later reopened to include my father's interests: my father was not mentioned the 1974 and 1978 wills. Charles D. Wallace, Esq. who drafted the 74 & 78 wills for my mother, told the Surrogate he did not know my father was alive.

Four days before my father died on April 20, 1992, I was informed by SSA that he was entitled to Medicare; Husband's Insurance Benefits and Widower's from 1976. SSA had misinformed me in writing back on Jan. 25, 1984 that no benefits were being paid "on his account." SSA failed to mention my father was entitled to benefits on my mother's earnings record who worked at Trico, since 1948.

I litigated the case from 1992 to 2001, pro se (as party in interest and as proper party estate delegate) winning two consecutive appeals at the Second Circuit and then filing a writ of certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court for pro se legal-work compensation. The case was rejected. The SSA inconceivably argued all along my father's 1976 application was filed incorrectly, yet refuses to produce it, to this day.

The application was "deemed" as filed correctly a few weeks prior to oral argument for my second appeal at the USCA 2nd Circuit.

As Administrator for my father's estate I just might have another shot in the U.S. Supreme Court for compensation for my pro se legal-work. I'd be the first pro se in U.S. history to get paid in a federal case as the prevailing party to overturn Kay V. Ehrler, 499 U.S. 432 (1991).

My investigations and litigations in following the money trail are continuing.

I'm also investigating leads to discover whether the US military resorted to chemical-biological warfare in gene mutation in conjunction with spraying the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War causing FSH Muscular Dystrophy in generations of Vietnamese civilians, some U.S. soldiers and in my son, Sol, caused by the March 7, 1968 injection, described supra, most likely research conducted for the U.S. Government, by the Veteran's Administration and/or SUNY at Buffalo Medical School related to the SUNY at Buffalo's Project Themis.
I've just begun my fight for truth and justice. I'm moving on.

Epilogue: What has surfaced since?

Of Henry Peterson and Robert Peloquin, the two DOJ officers who first launched the Strike Force idea in 1967. Peterson became involved in serving Nixon's interests during the Watergate cover-up and left the DOJ. (Waller 284)

Peloquin left the DOJ in late 1967 and went on to make a mysterious career out of organized crime. As early as 1966, on a DOJ official assignment in the Caribbean, he reported overtures by organized crime to take-over casino gambling in the Bahamas. Peloquin reported phenomenal success of ridding the casino of a mob take over. So successful, in fact, he formed his own concern to offer his services to businessmen worried of Mafia take-over of their companies. (Waller 284).

By late 1967 Peloquin resigned from the DOJ and went to work as VP of a company that operated the Paradise Island gambling as a subsidiary of the Mary Carter Paint Co. Eduardo Cellini, an aide of mobster Meyer Lansky from the early days of Havana was manager of the casino, under Peloquin. In early 1968, Mary Carter Paint Co. had changed its name to Resorts International Inc. (Waller 284).

Resorts International built a casino on Paradise Island. Richard Nixon was the guest of honor at the casino's grand opening on New Year's Eve 1968. James Crosby, Pres. of Resorts International, contributed $100,000 to Nixon's campaign. Crosby, Bebe Rebozo, Nixon's buddy, and Nixon partied with a bevy of movie stars, gangsters and GOP faithful. (Martin A. Lee "Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion," 245).


William G. Iannaccone is NLG legal worker member of the National Lawyers Guild Buffalo, N.Y, city chapter which he reorganized, along with a SUNY at Buffalo student chapter in the spring of 2007.
William has since 1985 worked with Richard D. Kaufman, Asst. U.S. Attorney and former member of the WNY Organized Crime Strike Force in investigations related to organized crime, including unsolved murders.
As a member of the NLG national Drug Policy Committee he is working on a proposed workshop "The Evidence: Timothy Leary/Mk-Ultra/Sicilian Mafia: The Dawning of the Drug War" for the Detroit Mich. 2008 Convention.
William attended SUNY at Buffalo and graduated with a BA in the Social Sciences Interdisciplinary-Legal Studies program, in May 2004. As a second generation MK-ULTRA survivor he is working on a book/film script revealing his unique insider's look into MK-ULTRA, the CIA's ultra secret behavioral science program, mentored by Prof. Mark Shechner, his former English professor, at SUNY at Buffalo.

EX-FBI OFFICIAL PULLS AT UNION'S INFAMOUS ROOTS


By Stephanie Mencimer June 7, 1998
When W. Douglas Gow moved onto the fifth-floor of the Washington headquarters of the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) in 1995, he changed the locks and swept for bugs. He demanded file cabinets impervious to firebombing and hacker-proofed his computers using the protocols of his former employer, the FBI.
The quintessential G-man with starched white shirt and spit-shined shoes, Gow was thus ensconced in the belly of the beast -- a union whose alleged organized crime ties date back to Al Capone. A retired FBI deputy director, he had been hired by LIUNA to conduct an extraordinary experiment in labor reform -- a self-policing plan that many saw as fraught with conflicts. Working from within, Gow was placed in charge of a no-holds-barred investigation designed to weed out allegedly corrupt LIUNA members.
Some of them worked just outside Gow's office door.

Three years later, Gow and the internal strike force have shaken the roots of the 750,000-member blue-collar union and been blasted along the way by everyone from ditch diggers to members of Congress. The effort, just extended by the Justice Department for another year, has been slow, expensive and decidedly uphill. Its long-term effects on union leadership are still unclear.

But as experiments go, the mob-busting efforts of Gow and his team have been viewed by reformers as a promising new tool in reconstructing the culture within a historically troubled union. Since the 1930s, the government has fought against organized crime's labor influence -- first with select prosecutions of tainted members, and more recently with broad court supervision of union affairs and elections stemming from civil lawsuits brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
LIUNA's approach offers a third option -- letting the union itself bear the cost and responsibility for keeping its membership clean.
LIUNA hired Gow as inspector general in 1995 to avert a threatened Justice Department RICO suit. A draft complaint alleged that four LIUNA presidents -- including current President Arthur A. Coia -- had been controlled by organized crime. It identified more than 80 LIUNA officials who had been convicted of major crimes and said that criminal influence was evident at the local and international levels. It demanded Coia's removal, threatening to seize control of LIUNA as it had the Teamsters in 1989.

Coia and a team of white-collar defense lawyers offered a compromise: To avoid a lawsuit, the union would create an internal -- but completely autonomous -- strike force of former federal agents and prosecutors to enforce a strict new ethics code. If the effort failed, LIUNA would yield to a government takeover. Justice accepted the deal and has been closely monitoring the progress.
Gow set out on tricky footing. One of his first tasks was to investigate Coia himself. At 55, Coia was a Democratic Party stalwart touted by LIUNA as the new face of American labor.
But Gow's team reopened unresolved issues from Coia's past and honed in on the Justice Department's allegation of organized crime affiliations. Its findings led attorney Robert Luskin, acting as internal prosecutor, to file disciplinary charges against Coia last November. If "barred conduct" is proven during the ongoing hearings, Coia could lose his $254,000-a-year job.
In a letter last fall to LIUNA's board, Coia expressed confidence that "when the truth is brought forward, I will be totally, completely and finally vindicated."

Coia's case stands out among hundreds of investigations now underway, a job that Gow says "is much larger than I imagined." Dozens of LIUNA members have been ousted and 30 locals and district councils have been taken over by the international.
But Coia's critics say Gow's work is far from finished. They complain that some already disciplined by Gow's team remain in union jobs. Because all the strike force members are on the union payroll, some question whether Gow and his colleagues are beholden to Coia and unlikely to discipline him or other high-ranking union officials.
Gow brushes off the suggestion. "You've probably heard that Mr. Coia tells us what to do and when to do it, but that's just baloney," he said in an interview in his spartan office. "I can't recite one instance where he has interfered with anything we have done."
Alex Corns, business manager of a LIUNA local in San Mateo, Calif., complained that Gow is up against an impossible challenge. "There's just not enough resources to fight what they've got to do. It would be like trying to fight a forest fire with six people."



When Gow took the $140,000-a-year job, the Justice Department handed him a road map to alleged corruption within LIUNA's international headquarters and 600 locals -- a 212-page draft racketeering complaint describing a union dominated by organized crime.
In LIUNA -- a union representing construction workers, chicken pluckers, hazardous waste handlers and various other trades -- organized crime had a 70-year grip on union business, prosectors alleged. The complaint spelled out criminal influence in matters ranging from the selection of officers to the awarding of service contracts. LIUNA's pension and welfare funds -- more than 300 in all totaling tens of billions of dollars -- were a magnet for organized crime, the complaint alleged. In the early 1990s, for example, prosecutors discovered that New York City's Mason Tenders District Council, a LIUNA affiliate, lost $50 million in pension funds through real estate investments allegedly controlled by organized crime.
Coia's leadership since 1993 had been troubling to the Justice Department, which described him in a memo to the White House as a "mob puppet." Coia was indicted in Florida in 1981 on racketeering charges, but the case was dropped after a judge ruled the statute of limitations had expired. He was accused of taking kickbacks from an insurance agent who dealt with LIUNA locals. Coia has said the charge was groundless and has denied being influenced by organized crime.
In recent years, Coia has had high visibility within the Democratic Party. He oversaw $1.4 million in union donations to the Democratic National Committee in 1994 and played golf with President Clinton. He supported one of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's favorite charities, the U.S. Botanic Gardens, and gave personally to Clinton's legal defense fund.
LIUNA invited Hillary Clinton to speak at a 1994 convention, but Paul Coffey, the former head of the Justice Department's organized crime and racketeering section, warned her in a memo that she should "avoid any direct contact with Coia, if possible" because the department was preparing to file a RICO suit. The first lady turned down the invitation.
Coffey was the same official who later approved Coia's cleanup plan, a decision that some Coia adversaries charged was politically motivated. Coffey denied that, testifying in a 1996 congressional hearing that Justice dropped the LIUNA lawsuit because, "we never had a union that said, We'll take on the mob before you file.' "
Gow recruited more than 60 former federal agents to examine whether members had engaged in "barred conduct" under LIUNA's rewritten ethics code. It called for expulsion of members who had been found guilty of crimes. But it also forbade members to assert their Fifth Amendment rights in a criminal case or obstruct Gow's investigations. Members could be expelled if a hearing officer determined after closed hearings that the ethics code had been broken.
An elaborate internal justice system was set up to provide due process. Defense attorney Luskin was hired as chief prosecutor -- or as he put it in an interview "to get the cockroaches out." The son of a Chicago labor arbitrator, Luskin once worked for the Justice Department's organized crime section and now has a Georgetown private practice. He said the union has paid his firm about $4 million since November 1994.
As its disciplinary judge, LIUNA hired Peter F. Vaira, a former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia. To hear appeals, it retained W. Neil Eggleston, a former White House lawyer and House Iran-Contra committee special counsel.
LIUNA's team honed in on notoriously troubled locals and district councils around the country.
First on the list was Buffalo's Local 210 with 1,200 members, a local whose alleged organized crime ties worried then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in the early 1960s. The local had not had a contested election since 1974, when John Cammilleri, a union member and alleged organized crime associate, was gunned down after supporting an opposition candidate.
Gow's agents assembled evidence to justify a trusteeship, a legal mechanism that allows the international to take over a local to correct financial malpractice or undemocratic practices.
Gow could no longer use traditional FBI tools -- tapping telephones or reading secret grand jury testimony. But he had help from Ronald Fino, Local 210's longtime business agent, who was in the federal witness protection program.
Gow said of the local's history: "They had all the common schemes -- contract rigging, no-show jobs, kickbacks, investments going wild and kickbacks on the investments."
Local 210's officers agreed to step down without a hearing, and Luskin appointed Gabriel Rosetti Jr., a 31-year union member from Rochester, N.Y., for a two-year stint as supervisor. Rosetti expected a smooth transition but arrived at the union hall on his first day -- Palm Sunday 1996 -- to find it blocked by 200 members chanting "Gabe go home!" The insurgents occupied the hall for three weeks until a federal judge ordered them out.
Insurgency leader John Tomasello was expelled for leading the protest. He complained in an interview that lawyers for the international "made it look like everybody in that union -- especially the Italians -- like they're criminals."
Some of Rosetti's tactics grew out of necessity, officials say. He said he discovered that the union was giving high-paid construction jobs to alleged Buffalo crime family associates. The local's finances were a mess, but officers had been leasing five Grand Cherokees at twice the market rate from a company in distant Rhode Island. Rosetti cut the local's staff and reduced the auto fleet to a single Buick Regal. But his effort to coax new leadership out of the rank-and-file was sabotaged, he believed, by former leaders who hoped eventually to return to power.
In early 1996, Luskin asked Vaira to eject 28 Local 210 members. Their cases were pending for 18 months, meaning that Rosetti not only had to live with the accused, he had to pay some of them.
Three on Luskin's list -- including Sam Capitano, the former business manager's son -- had been elected to $25,000-a-year advisory board positions created by Luskin.
Capitano attacked Rosetti at one meeting, grabbing a microphone and yelling "Gabe, you got no balls." The next day, the two got into a fistfight and Rosetti fired Capitano from the board -- an action Capitano has contested before the National Labor Relations Board. He is suspended from the union.
Vaira finally expelled most of the questioned members in early April and extended the local's supervision indefinitely. Luskin expects the local to appeal the decision in federal court.
When Gow traveled to Chicago in 1995 to investigate the Chicago Laborers District Council, a threatening message waited on his hotel voice mail: "Who do you think you're {expletive} dealing with? A bunch of kids from Waco?"
The anonymous call was a blunt reminder that the real seat of the union's power was in Chicago, LIUNA's birthplace.
The Justice Department alleged in the draft RICO complaint that Anthony "Joe Batters" Accardo, an alleged high-ranking organized crime figure who died in 1992, endorsed all of LIUNA's international officers. In 1989, when Coia sought to replace his ailing father on LIUNA's executive board, he flew to Chicago and consulted with Vincent "Innocent" Solano, Accardo's right-hand man, according to Coia's testimony in a 1995 lawsuit.
The Chicago District Council, the collective bargainer for 21 locals and 19,000 workers, had been investigated by two Senate committees and the President's Commission on Organized Crime before the Justice Department accused it again of organized crime ties in the draft RICO complaint.
When Gow arrived, Bruno Caruso was council president. His father, Frank "Skids" Caruso, was described in the RICO draft complaint as a boss of gambling and extortion rackets. Based on Gow's work, in February hearing officer Vaira put the council under a trusteeship and Luskin appointed Chicago labor lawyer Robert Bloch as trustee.
Caruso, now out of a $186,000-a-year job, believes Gow's campaign is retaliation against him engineered by Coia, who he said sees him as a rival. He denied any criminal ties, saying the allegations stem from Italian American stereotypes.
"Winston Churchill, he smokes a cigar, he's astute. Other guys, they don't button their collar, they're casual," said Caruso in an interview. "I smoke a cigar, don't button my collar, Im a wise guy."
Caruso argued that the "so-called reform" would destroy the council's bargaining power in negotiating new contracts for construction workers.
Bloch took over the negotiations this spring. He invited representatives of all 21 locals to participate.
On May 29, after a 20-hour marathon session, the council emerged with a contract promising major improvements and a 35 percent pay increase.
"People are telling me this is the best contract they've ever had," Bloch said. "It is a tangible sign that things are really moving forward."
The challenge faced by Gow's team was nowhere more evident than the 1996 Laborers' convention in Las Vegas, a dazzling affair with Elvis impersonators, laser shows and swarms of federal agents keeping tabs on LIUNA's first contested presidential election in 25 years.
Coia was considered a shoo-in. Most members gathering from across the country had never seen the Justice Department's draft RICO complaint because Vaira barred dissidents from distributing it.
LIUNA's agreement with Justice required that the rank-and-file vote for president by secret ballot.
Giving them someone to vote for was another matter. Almost no one wanted to challenge Coia, who ran as a reformer.
The last attempt to oust an incumbent left an imprint. In 1981, when dissidents tried to nominate a challenger to run against President Angelo Fosco, then under a racketeering indictment, they were beaten on the convention floor, according to a report by the President's Commission on Organized Crime.
Coia's LIUNA pull dated back to his father, Arthur Ettore Coia, the international's secretary-treasurer for 20 years. The elder Coia built LIUNA into a Rhode Island political force while cultivating ties to Raymond L.S. Patriarcha, a one-time reputed head of New England's major crime family, according to the draft RICO suit.
The younger Coia had moved into the top job with little experience doing the low-paid labor of most of his members. Coia's Providence law firm, which represents LIUNA members and trust funds in New England, has allowed him to drive a Ferrari, play golf and breed Rottweilers. He splits his time between Washington and Rhode Island. He is still president of the Providence local his grandfather founded.
In 1989, LIUNA's board appointed Coia secretary-treasurer. He was named president when Fosco died in 1993.
The draft RICO complaint alleged that he had long associated with organized crime and conspired with the Buffalo crime family up through 1994 to create regional training centers in New York that were allegedly to be run by organized crime. Coia has denied any organized crime involvement. After some prodding, Bernard Scanlon of Long Island volunteered to run against Coia, calling himself the "sacrificial lamb." Chicago council President Caruso also jumped in. In the end, only a small percentage of LIUNA's membership voted. Coia was reelected overwhelmingly. Scanlon never rallied enough support to get on the ballot. Caruso got 30 percent of the vote.
Stephen Goldberg, a Northwestern University law professor who served as LIUNA's election officer, considered the election a limited success. In a report to the Justice Department, he wrote, "Although some progress has been made in transforming LIUNA into a participative political democracy, that progress is both limited and fragile." Coia may have triumphed, but his trials are not over. He spent most of April at his own disciplinary hearing, facing charges that he was influenced by organized crime and took vendor kickbacks. Coia and his lawyer, Howard Gutman, declined to comment but Coia has publicly denied the charges in the past. Dissidents who have monitored the case worry that the prosecutors and the judge, all paid by the union, will treat him with kid gloves.
LIUNA officials are confident that Coia will remain in power. Chief of staff Terence O'Sullivan said, "If it wasn't for him, we would not be sitting here talking about cooperative reform."
And some members say Coia's removal would not cure union problems. Robert Brown, a local business manager in Rochester said that if Coia steps down, his most likely successor is LIUNA Vice President Peter J. Fosco, son of former president Angelo Fosco. A new generation of Fosco leadership, dissidents say, would be like handing over the Teamsters to James P. Hoffa, son of James R. Hoffa, the longtime head of the union who disappeared in 1975. Fosco, whose father preceded Coia as president, said in a telephone interview he supports Coia's reform and declined to speculate on succession. But one thing has changed. In the old days, the Justice Department contends, no one could make it past LIUNA's board to the presidency without first winning approval from the mob. This year, if the board is forced to replace Coia, their candidate will have to pass muster with Douglas Gow first. CAPTION: INVESTIGATING THE BIG 4 In 1986, the President's Commission on Organized Crime recommended that the Justice Department go beyond criminal prosecutions of union members and use the civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act to make systemic union reforms. It targeted the "big four" unions that the FBI alleged were "substantially influenced and/or controlled by organized crime" and in need of major cleanup. Here's a status report: Laborers International Union of North America President: Arthur A. Coia, appointed in 1993 Membership: 750,000. The union represents construction workers, mail handlers, hazardous waste haulers, chicken pluckers and others. Status: LIUNA headed off a RICO suit in 1995 by promising an internal cleanup. To date, dozens of members have been expelled, including two former vice presidents. More than 60 members quit before their cases resulted in disciplinary charges. Twenty-two matters have been referred to law enforcement for prosecution. The international has placed 30 locals and district councils in trusteeship or under supervision. Disciplinary charges are pending against Coia that could result in his ouster. In 1996, for the first time, rank-and-file members directly elected their general executive board officers by secret ballot. Previously, convention delegates chose the president and other officers. The three-year agreement with the Justice Department was extended for another year in January. International Brotherhood of Teamsters President: Ron Carey Membership: 1.4 million, the nation's largest union. It represents truck drivers, industrial workers, and others. Status: A RICO suit against the international resulted in a 1989 consent decree forcing the union to hold rank-and-file elections and naming a court monitor to root out corrupt members. More than 300 members have been expelled, 80 locals have been put into trusteeship and $15 million in misappropriated pension money has been recouped. The reform paved the way for the 1991 election of Ron Carey, a longtime member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union. Carey was reelected in 1996 by a narrow margin, defeating James P. Hoffa. But late last year, the election was overturned in the wake of a campaign finance scandal. Carey was disqualified, and three of his operatives pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy. Another was recently indicted on embezzlement charges. Congress is now investigating how a scandal erupted while the union was under government oversight.' Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union President: Edward Hanley, in office since 1973. Membership: 300,000. It represents bartenders, housekeepers, waiters and casino workers. Status: In 1995, HEREIU was put under federal supervision after the Justice Department settled a RICO suit against an Atlantic City local. The federal monitoring ended March 5, but a Public Review Board, headed by former Illinois governor James Thompson, will continue to oversee the union's internal reforms. Forty officials, members and union associates have been barred permanently or otherwise disciplined, but the monitorship ended this March without a supervised election, considered a crucial element to union reform. On May 20, the U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., unsealed a February agreement in which Hanley agreed to retire and leave office by July 31. Hanley had been a controversial figure. He asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when questioned before a presidential commission about alleged ties to organized crime. International Longshoremen's Association President: John Bowers, in office since 1987 Membership: 65,000. It represents shipping and dock workers. Status: The union, which the AFL-CIO expelled for corruption in 1953 (but reinstated in 1959), was the inspiration for the movie "On the Waterfront." In 1990, the government filed a RICO civil suit against six ILA locals that represented workers on the New York and New Jersey waterfront. The suit described the influence of Gambino family head John Gotti and Genovese family boss Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno. Monitors were appointed to oversee the locals. Nine members and officers were removed, and Bowers, who was president of three of the locals, was barred from holding office in any of the locals. The government has not sought to takeover the union's international operation.