Philadelphia
Inquirer - 11/27/03:
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."
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