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Ten Charged in Carpenters Union Corruption Case
LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for
the Southern District of New York, JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR., the
Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, and DANIEL R. PETROLE, the
Acting Inspector General of the United States Department of
Labor, announced the unsealing of an Indictment charging MICHAEL
FORDE -- the head of the Carpenters Union District Council in New
York City -- together with seven other Carpenters Union
officials, one construction contractor, and a contractors'
representative, with a series of offenses stemming principally
from a scheme by which Carpenters Union officials, in return for
bribes, allowed construction contractors to avoid full payment of
union wages and benefits at various job sites in New York City.
Seven of the defendants were arrested this morning; two remain at
large; and FORDE is expected to surrender to law enforcement
authorities later today. As set forth in the 29-count Indictment
unsealed today in Manhattan federal court:
The Carpenters Union
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners is a
national labor union that represents skilled workers at
construction sites. In New York City, approximately 20,000
members of the union are divided into eleven locals, overseen by
the District Council of New York City and Vicinity. On behalf of its locals, the District Council has entered into numerous
collective bargaining agreements ("CBAs") with construction
contractors and construction contractor associations operating at
job sites in New York City. The CBAs generally require
contractors to employ only union members for specified
construction work; to pay workers at a specified hourly rate; and
to make contributions for each hour worked to the District
Council's benefit funds. The benefit funds provide life
insurance, health insurance, pension, retirement and vacation
benefits to participating union members and their families; and
trustees of the benefit funds include both union and contractor
representatives. Union shop stewards at each job site are
required to submit weekly "shop steward reports" to the local
union office tracking employees and hours worked at the job site.
The District Council and the District Council benefit funds
relied on these reports to audit contractor contributions.
The 1994 Civil RICO Consent Decree
Since 1994 the Carpenters Union and its constituent
locals and District Council have been bound by a federal consent
decree stemming from a civil case brought by the United States
under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
("RICO") to address a history of union corruption and organized
crime influence within the District Council. The consent decree,
among other things, prohibited union officials from associating
with organized crime figures and imposed job referral rules
governing the assignment of shop stewards and union members to
job sites. In 2002 an Independent Investigator was appointed
under the consent decree to investigate wrongdoing in the union,
including job referral violations, bribe taking, false reports,
and off-the-books payment of wages.
The Charges in this Case
In this case, MICHAEL FORDE, the Executive
Secretary-Treasurer of the District Council and a benefits funds
trustee; JOHN GREANEY, the Business Manager and President of
Local 608 (the largest local in the Council) and a benefits funds
trustee; BRIAN HAYES, a business agent and officer of Local 608;
shop stewards MICHAEL BRENNAN, BRIAN CARSON, JOSEPH RUOCCO, JOHN
STAMBERGER, and MICHAEL VIVENZIO; and JOSEPH OLIVIERI, a benefit
funds trustee and executive director of the Association of Wall,
Ceiling and Carpentry Industries of New York, are charged with
unlawfully receiving money, loans, or other things of value from
contractors, in a total amount of approximately one million
dollars. FINBAR O'NEILL, a contractor, is charged with helping
to deliver illegal cash payments to FORDE.
In exchange for the bribes, the defendants allowed and
helped certain contractors to defraud the union and its benefit
funds out of millions of dollars by permitting the contractors
to, among other things, pay union members cash at below-union
rates, without benefits; employ illegal aliens and non-union
workers on their job sites; and avoid payment to the union
benefit funds in violation of applicable CBAs. The defendants
helped the contractors to conceal the scheme by, among other
things, filing false shop steward reports, giving the contractors
advanced notice of job site visits by union investigators,
issuing union cards to the illegal aliens who worked for those
contractors for cash, giving false testimony, and destroying
documents.
In addition, among other charges, OLIVIERI, FORDE,
GREANEY, HAYES, BRENNAN, and CARSON are charged with perjury in
connection with testimony in the Civil RICO case and another
civil case; and RUOCCO is charged with making false statements to
a Department of Labor Investigator.
The defendants are specifically charged with the
following offenses:
| Ct |
Charge |
Defendant(s) |
Maximum Penalty |
| 1 |
Racketeering
Conspiracy |
FORDE, GREANEY,
HAYES, O'NEILL,
BRENNAN |
20 years in prison;
fine of the greater of
$250,000 or twice the
gross gain or loss from
the offense |
| 2 |
Racketeering |
FORDE, GREANEY,
HAYES, BRENNAN |
20 years in prison;
fine of the greater of
$250,000 or twice the
gross gain or loss from
the offense |
| 3 |
Conspiracy (as to Contractor #1) |
FORDE, GREANEY,
O'NEILL, BRENNAN,
OLIVIERI, CARSON,
RUOCCO,
STAMBERGER,
VIVENZIO |
5 years in prison; fine
of the greater of
$250,000 or twice the
gross gain or loss from
the offense |
| 4 |
Conspiracy (as to
Contractor #2) |
FORDE, GREANEY,
HAYES |
5 years in prison; fine
of the greater of
$250,000 or twice the
gross gain or loss from
the offense |
| 5 |
Conspiracy (as to
Contractor #3) |
GREANEY, HAYES |
5 years in prison; fine
of the greater of
$250,000 or twice the
gross gain or loss from
the offense |
| 6 |
Conspiracy (as to
Contractor #4) |
GREANEY, HAYES |
5 years in prison; fine
of the greater of
$250,000 or twice the
gross gain or loss from
the offense |
| 7 |
Wire Fraud and
Deprivation of
Honest Services (as to Contractor #1) |
FORDE, GREANEY,
BRENNAN, O'NEILL,
CARSON, RUOCCO,
STAMBERGER,
VIVENZIO |
20 years in prison;
fine of the greater of
$1 million or twice the
gross gain or loss from
the offense |
| 8 |
Wire Fraud and
Deprivation of
Honest Services (as to Contractor #2) |
FORDE, GREANEY,
HAYES |
20 years in prison;
fine of the greater of
$1 million or twice the
gross gain or loss from
the offense |
| 9 |
Wire Fraud and
Deprivation of
Honest Services (as to Contractor #3) |
GREANEY, HAYES |
20 years in prison;
fine of the greater of
$1 million or twice the
gross gain or loss from
the offense |
| 10 |
Wire Fraud and
Deprivation of
Honest Services (as to Contractor #4) |
GREANEY, HAYES |
20 years in prison;
fine of $1 million or
twice the gross gain or
loss from the offense |
| 11 |
Unlawful Acceptance of Payment by Labor Representative |
FORDE, O'NEILL |
5 years in prison; fine
of $15,000 |
| 12 |
Unlawful Acceptance of Payment by Labor Representative |
GREANEY |
5 years in prison; fine
of $15,000 |
| 13 |
Unlawful Acceptance of Payment by Labor Representative |
GREANEY, HAYES |
5 years in prison; fine
of $15,000 |
| 14 |
Unlawful Payments to Labor Representatives |
OLIVIERI |
5 years in prison; fine
of $15,000 |
| 15 |
Unlawful Acceptance of Payments to Labor Representative |
HAYES |
5 years in prison; fine
of $15,000 |
| 16 |
Unlawful Acceptance of Payment by Labor Representative |
BRENNAN |
5 years in prison; fine
of $15,000 |
| 17 |
Unlawful Acceptance of Payment by Labor Representative |
VIVENZIO |
5 years in prison; fine
of $15,000 |
| 18 |
Unlawful Acceptance of Payment by Labor Representative |
CARSON |
5 years in prison; fine
of $15,000 |
| 19 |
Unlawful Acceptance of Payment by Labor Representative |
STAMBERGER |
5 years in prison; fine
of $15,000 |
| 20 |
Unlawful Acceptance of Payment by Labor Representative |
RUOCCO |
5 years in prison; fine
of $15,000 |
| 21 |
Acceptance of Loan to Influence Operations of Employee Benefit Plan |
OLIVIERI |
3 years in prison; fine
of the greater of
$250,000 or twice the
gross gain or loss from
the offense |
| 22 |
Perjury |
OLIVIERI |
5 years in prison; fine
of $250,000 |
| 23 |
Perjury |
FORDE |
5 years in prison; fine
of $250,000 |
| 24 |
Perjury |
GREANEY |
5 years in prison; fine
of $250,000 |
| 25 |
Perjury |
HAYES |
5 years in prison; fine
of $250,000 |
| 26 |
Perjury |
BRENNAN |
5 years in prison; fine
of $250,000 |
| 27 |
Perjury |
CARSON |
5 years in prison; fine
of $250,000 |
| 28 |
False Statements |
RUOCCO |
5 years in prison; fine
of $250,000 |
| 29 |
Obstruction of Justice |
BRENNAN |
10 years in prison;
fine of $250,000 or
twice the gross gain or
loss from the offense |
GREANEY, 49, of Yonkers, New York; HAYES, 38, of New
York, New York; OLIVIERI, 54, of Yonkers, New York; CARSON, 49,
of the Bronx, New York; RUOCCO, 49, of East Stroudsburg,
Pennsylvania; STAMBERGER, 52, of Brick, New Jersey; and VIVENZIO, 61, of Mahwah, New Jersey, were arrested this morning. FORDE,
54, of Woodside, New York, is expected to surrender to federal
authorities later today. O'NEILL, 44, of Paramus, New Jersey,
and BRENNAN, 53, of Bushkill, Pennsylvania; remain at large.
The case was assigned to United States District Judge
VICTOR MARRERO. The defendants arrested today are expected to
appear in Manhattan federal court later today.
Mr. DASSIN praised the Department of Labor, Office of
the Inspector General, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
for their outstanding work in investigating this case. Mr.
DASSIN also thanked the Internal Revenue Service and Social
Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General, for
their valuable assistance. Mr. DASSIN added that the
investigation is continuing.
"Leaders of the Carpenters Union are charged today with
betraying the rank and file of the union they were sworn to
protect. Instead of protecting the financial interests of union
members and their families, corrupt union officials and the
contractors who bribed them are charged with betraying the
Carpenters Union and its benefit funds to enrich themselves,"
said LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for the
Southern District of New York. "Moreover, today's Indictment
shows continuing corruption at the highest ranks of the union's
leadership even after years of dedicated efforts under the
federal Consent Decree to rid the union of wrongdoing. Forde and
his co-defendants are alleged to have evaded for years detection
under the law and the Consent Decree, to line their pockets at
the expense of union members. Now, they will face criminal
charges for their conduct."
"At the heart of these charges is the egregious breach
of fiduciary responsibility by union officers who turned their
backs on rank-and-file members. Rather than doing what they were
elected to do -- safeguarding wages and benefits for union
members -- they took cash and other bribes to turn a blind eye on
contractors' schemes to cheat the rank-and-file," said FBI
Assistant Director-in-Charge JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR. "Motivated
by self-interest, they sold out the interests of the members. The
FBI remains committed to rooting out racketeering, whether by
made men or crooked union men."
"Today's sweeping RICO indictment serves as a warning
to union and benefit fund officials that the Federal government
will not tolerate abuses of power," said DANIEL R. PETROLE, the
Acting Inspector General of the United States Department of
Labor. "Together with our law enforcement partners, my agency will continue to exercise its statutory authority to investigate
union-related corruption by officials who line their pockets at
the expense of the hardworking men and women whose interests they
are entrusted to protect."
Assistant United States Attorney LISA ZORNBERG is in
charge of the prosecution.
The charges contained in the Indictment are merely
accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and
until proven guilty.
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