Frmr. NYPD Commish Working to Reform Mobbed-Up NJ Local
Former NYC police commissioner Robert McGuire has hired three assistants to clean up Local
588 of the Intl. Longshoremen's Assn. (ILA).His team has succeeded in recruiting dozens of new members outside of the familial and personal connections that reportedly kept the Genovese crime family in control of 1588.They have also provided a detailed accounting of its annual budget. According to McGuire, one member told him, "That's the first financial statement I've heard in 35 years."
But still on the Bayonne, NJ, waterfront as a counterpoint to McGuire is ex-1588 president John Timpanaro.He and six other reputed Genovese associates will be tried in the Spring on state charges of racketeering, theft by extortion, commercial bribery, and conspiracy.Until he is convicted, Timpanaro can not be fired from his foreman's job.
On Jan. 30 of this year, Federal Judge John S. Martin, Jr. (S.D. NY, G.H.W. Bush) appointed McGuire to take over the local, agreeing with U.S. Attny. James B. Comey that the union was "a cesspool of union corruption" that "for decades...has offered a hospitable environment for mobsters."According to Associated Press reporter Larry McShane, organized crime was already involved in the NY-NJ waterfronts when 1588 was formed in 1938.The corruption created a "mob tax" that has been passed on to consumers, acc. to McGuire.
In the late 1960s, the Genovese and Gambino crime families divided control of the docks, with the Gambinos taking over Brooklyn and Staten Island, and the Genoveses taking Manhattan and New Jersey.Running 1588 for the Genovese organization was George Barone, a member of the Jets gang immortalized in West Side Story.It was Barone that brokered the deal that insured "peace" between the two crime families.In the mid 1970s, legendary NJ mobster John DiGilio took over 1588."He was a big money-maker for the Genovese crime family," said Lawrence Lezak, law director of the Waterfront Commission.In 1981, he was publicly linked with 1588 secy.-treasurer Donald Carson, son of a Bayonne cop who helped Digilio extort money for "labor peace," acc. to law enforcement authorities.
In 1988, two weeks before he was to be sentenced for loan-sharking, DiGilio's body was found in the Hackensack river with two bullets behind his ear.That, along with Carson's conviction, left a void in the 1588 leadership.The new official leaders of the local were John Angelone and Eugene G'Sell.But behind them, acc. to federal prosecutors, was Genovese associate Joseph Lore.In 1992, local president G'Sell agreed to sever all ties between the union and organized crime in an agreement with the U.S. Attny. for the Sou. Dist. of NY. Instead, Lore continued to pull the strings at 1588 in no uncertain terms, even threatening to use a blowtorch on Angelone's crotch once.For 9 years, Lore stole $821,000 in no-show job payments from the union.
In Dec. 2001, Lore was convicted of embezzlement after G'Sell and Angelone testified against him.The most recent president of 1588, Timpanaro, was charged in March of 2002.That was the last straw for the U.S. Attny., who asked for the court takeover in Dec. of last year.Should Timpanaro win an acquittal next Spring, "that's a whole different ball game" for McGuire's efforts, said Waterfront Commission exec. dir. Thomas De Maria. "[T]he only message would be you can get away with it."
Bayonne Hiring Agent Sentenced to 70 Months Imprisonment for Embezzling More Than $750,000 from Union
LONGSHOREMAN (ILA) Five Convicted in $750,000 New Jersey Scandal
New Jersey Bosses/Mobsters Accused of Racketeering & Extortion
Decades after Brando, waterfront still mobbed up
DIVISION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE OBTAINS INDICTMENT CHARGING 8 WITH SHAKE-DOWN OF DOCK WORKERS