Approx. 15 members of Local 17 have been arrested following months of investigations for extortion & racketeering............
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Approx. 15 members of Local 17 have been arrested following months of investigations for extortion & racketeering............
Local 17 ("Operating Engineers") have been arrested for extorting private contractors , using the DMV & "other" "FOIL" "Acts" to obtain info on private contractors , their workers & families to threaten them to join their union...............Seems they were actualy threatening to sexually assault some of the worker's girlfriends & wifes & families , vandalize property , etc.
How do you know this?
I just skimmed 2,4,7 and see no mention.
just sent "Breaking News" to my Blackberry via Channel 4's Breaking News sent directly to my cell phone !Quote:
Originally Posted by WNYresident
Each channel "opened" with this as LEAD story , much more to follow.............Quote:
Originally Posted by WNYresident
Small details on Channel 4's web-site already............
On the Buffalo News site.
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/318304.html
Federal agents bust local union on racketeering and extortion charges
Read the Full Story ib Channel 4Quote:
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - - Federal agents have made a major bust involving a dozen officers and members of a local construction union on racketeering and extortion charges.
Authorities on Tuesday morning arrested 12 people associated with Operating Engineers Local 17 following what they termed as a lengthy investigation.
Published reports state that agents started the roundup at 5:30 a.m. Among those arrested was Mark N. Kirsch the president of the Lakeview based local.
Officials are comparing the case to a recent investigation that led to prison terms for several top tier officials from Laborers Local 91 in Niagara Falls.
Local 1 runs equipment repair shops, gravel yards and ready-mix concrete plants at construction sites. They have 2,100 members in Western New York and they are part of an international union with 400,000 members.
Unions aren't corrupt. So I've been told.
this "local" is right out of the old "John Gotti" era...............joina or we bust up youa legs.............Quote:
Originally Posted by LHardy
Public beatings... that what they have to bring back for these guys... to threaten someone's girlfriends or wives is pretty low.
It's like the Jimmy Hoffa days, without the concrete shoes.
Here is the scoop from Illuzzi . . . Kirsch told him months ago, "NO truth to the story that his union was corrupt".
From Illuzzi-letter:
Quote:
April 9, 2008
PoliticsNY.Net: FEDS BUST OPERATORS LOCAL 17
We first mentioned this investigation months ago when we reported the Feds seized Local 17's records. I spoke to President Mark Kirsch, a long time supporter & friend, he told me there was NO truth to the story that his union was corrupt.
"Federal agents this morning arrested 12 officers and members of Operating Engineers Local 17, following a lengthy investigation into alleged labor racketeering and extortion at one of the region's largest construction unions.
Authorities said the president of the Lakeview-based local, Mark N. Kirsch, was one of those arrested in a roundup that began when agents started going to the homes of the suspects at 5:30 a.m.
Law enforcement officials likened the case to a recent investigation that led to prison terms for several of the top officials of Laborers Local 91 in Niagara Falls.
"Some of the criminal allegations in this [Local 17] case go back as far as 10 years. At this point, I can't say anything more than that," U.S. Attorney Terrance P. Flynn said this morning." ###
Gotta love the great press this gives the region.
http://triangle.bizjournals.com/tria...7/daily17.html
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=8134853
Same drama happened in niagara falls:Quote:
Originally Posted by kernwatch
LOCAL 91, BRIDGE COMMISSION TEAM UP TO ANNIHILATE SUCCESSFUL LEWISTON BUSINESS
By Mike Hudson
A Colorado businessman charged this week he was shaken down by indicted Local 91 union thug Mark Congi and henchman Joel Cicero, husband of ousted Local 91 Secretary Cheryl Cicero and son-in-law of indicted union boss Michael "Butch" Quarcini.
Cicero is a Mario Cuomo-appointed member of the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission who -- Albany sources told the Reporter this week -- won't be around for long. Builder Joe Aragon used the word "extortion" to describe the way he was treated, and said Cicero used his position on the Bridge Commission to force the hiring of Local 91 members on a recent construction project here.
Congi and Quarcini face multiple charges of conspiracy and extortion and are looking at 20 years in prison, while Cicero has yet to be charged.
Aragon, who has built 47 Pizza Hut-Taco Bell restaurants around the country with his company, ProServe Corp., tried building one on the New York side of the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge last spring.
That's when the trouble began. Joel Cicero, he said, turned the project into a nightmare.
"These guys (Cicero and Congi) took me and a friend into a room," Aragon said. "They told me I was going to have to hire some guys. I thought I was in a James Cagney movie."
Bridge Commissioner Cicero is also an official in Laborers Local 91, a union identified by federal prosecutors earlier this year as a "criminal enterprise." His father-in-law and many of his friends are under indictment, and his wife was recently kicked out of her $89,000-a-year post as the Local's secretary.
"I went down to the union hall and Cicero was sitting in this big chair like a judge or something," Aragon said. "Mark Congi told me, 'We never forget and you'll never get away from us.'"
Aragon says Cicero and Congi "put the arm" on him, in an attempt to get him to hire Local 91 workers. Undeterred, Aragon proceeded with his construction. Violent pickets began. Despite the fact he had put one of the Laborers on the job, the thugs wanted more and wouldn't let up.
"I had one girl who worked for me hit by a car, incidents of vandalism and threats," Aragon said. "I've never seen anything like it."
The Bridge Commission was no help, he added.
"Joel Cicero was the Bridge Commission," he said. "He told me I'd better play ball, or else."
The Reporter immediately put Aragon in touch with William Hochul, the U.S. Attorney on the Local 91 case.
"I'll testify anytime, any place," Aragon said. "I spent a million dollars to build this thing and this is the only place in the country where I had to go out of business. I believe Cicero and Congi were directly responsible."
Since its opening, the Pizza Hut-Taco Bell at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge has been plagued by bad business. It closed last month, and 25 full-time employees were laid off. According to Aragon, the threats of Mark Congi have been delivered.
"If we put the word out, you won't have a truck stop here," Aragon said Congi told him. Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by terrorists who aren't members of Local 91, virtually all of the traffic across the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge has been truckers. And, as Congi forewarned, they haven't been stopping.
The Laborers put the screw in with the Teamsters to stay away from the restaurant, Aragon said.
All told, 25 Niagara County restaurant employees are out of work, a successful businessman from Colorado lost a million dollars and now characterizes his time in Niagara Falls as something out of a gangster movie. Because that was the power of Laborers Local 91 here and because the fix was in from a Bridge Commissioner who ought to be indicted.
It's the kind of creepy stuff that happens here and nowhere else -- not in Cleveland or Erie or New York City. Not in 2002.