WCNYH

Checker Applicant Denied Registration For Frauds and Ties To Genovese Soldier Stephen DePiro

May 2, 2017

   Mark Caruso, Jr., 25, of East Hanover, New Jersey, had his Application for inclusion in the Longshore Register as a Checker denied today by the Waterfront Commission following a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). The denial was based on his long association to Stephen DePiro, a soldier in the Genovese Crime Family, who is a convicted racketeer and career offender and fraud, deceit and misrepresentation in his application. The Commission also denied Caruso’s application based on his lack of good character and integrity, the standard to be a checker in the Port of New York district.

   The Commission established at a hearing that DePiro had been, and continues to be in a longstanding romantic relationship with Caruso’s mother, Michele, and that he began living with Caruso and Caruso’s mother when Caruso was about ten years old. DePiro lived there until he was arrested in 2010 in New Jersey and ultimately sent to prison as one of the defendants in the “Christmastime Bonus” extortion ring of Port workers. In that prosecution, longshoremen were forced to convey part or all of their annual container royalty funds to DePiro, on behalf of the Genovese Crime Family. The extortion plot, which lasted over twenty years, netted the Genovese Crime Family in excess of a million dollars.

   The Commission also proved that Mark Caruso, Jr., despite having read on the internet about DePiro’s reputation as a member of the Genovese Crime Family, failed to list DePiro on his Waterfront Prequalification Request as someone with whom he had associated, and thereby committed fraud, deceit or misrepresentation on his application.

   In addition, the Commission established that Caruso denied on his application that he had obtained assistance in preparing his application. During the administrative hearing, Caruso admitted obtaining assistance from his father, thereby contradicting his sworn statement that he had received no help. The ALJ found that Caruso’s misrepresentation on his application about seeking help from his father not to be a minimal transgression, especially in light of Caruso’s failure to list his association with DePiro on the same application. Thus, the ALJ found that Caruso lacked the good character and integrity required to become a checker and the Commission agreed.

   Caruso had been submitted by the International Longshoreman’s Association as a prequalification candidate. Despite being denied prequalification for fraud, deceit and misrepresentation on his application and association with Genovese soldier Stephen DePiro, the ILA sponsored him as a checker anyway, necessitating the above referenced hearing.