Last week, U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara surprised even prosecutors when he said he might sentence a former Laborers Local 91 goon to a sentence harsher than called for by federal advisory guidelines.
Arcara's words can't be helping the other admitted extortionists and racketeers awaiting their own punishment sleep any easier.
The judge pushed his final decision on the fate of Randall Butler, who admitted driving several other Local 91 members to a townhouse where several non-union workers were staying during an asbestos-removal job at the Niagara Falls water plant in April 1997. The other union members threw crude explosives through the townhouse's window, costing one man the hearing in one ear and starting a fire.
The testimony of that worker, Goran Stevanovic, provided the climactic moment of the long-running prosecution of the notorious Niagara Falls union, during the trial of Mark Congi, Albert Celeste, Paul Bellreng and Joel Cicero. Moments after the New Jersey man described the threats he received during hostile picketing, including not-so-veiled threats against him and his family made by Bellreng, attorneys for the final four defendants surrendered. The ensuing guilty pleas, entered on Aug. 1, ended a trial expected to last more than a month after just two weeks.
Celeste is scheduled for sentencing on Tuesday, followed by Bellreng a day later, Congi on Dec. 20 and Butler on Dec. 21.
Until last year, the judge's discretion in passing sentence would have been much more limited. A federal panel spent several years in the 1980s creating a formula to arrive at sentencing ranges, based on the severity of the offense, the defendant's criminal history and mitigating factors such as acceptance of responsibility and willingness to cooperate with prosecutors.
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Booker that the guidelines violated the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. While no longer forced to do so, judges still routinely follow the guidelines. The first 12 sentences Judge Arcara has handed down in the Local 91 case all fell within the recommended range, including Cicero's. He received two years probation and was fined $1,000.
Unlike the other defendants awaiting sentencing, there were no ties between Cicero and acts of violence, or even direct threats. Instead, Cicero admitted to using his dual roles with the union, where he held the title of training director, and as a member of the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission, to help secure work for Local 91. Much of his clout, not to mention both those jobs, stemmed directly from his status as the son-in-law of Michael "Butch" Quarcini, Local 91's longtime leader.
Celeste, Bellreng and Congi each face longer sentences than the 33 to 41 months recommended by the federal guidelines and each has admitted to much deeper involvement in what prosecutors described as the "criminal enterprise" that the union had become.
Butler had not been part of the May 2002 roundup of 14 Local 91 officers and members, including Quarcini. In fact, Butler had been elected sergeant-at-arms of the local in 2004 as part of a "reform ticket" after the Laborers International Union of North America ended the trusteeship it imposed after the original indictments.
Butler's was one of several subsequent indictments, based on the testimony of defendants who had made deals with federal prosecutors, as well as new witnesses who came forward after the 2002 sweep. Robert Malvestuto Jr., who swept to power as the new Local 91 president in the 2004 election, was also indicted and removed from office.
In making their sentencing recommendation, prosecutors said Butler sent a message via a guard at the Niagara County Jail to Local 91 member Anthony Cerrone, who had agreed to cooperate with the feds following his conviction.
"Tell Cerrone I owe him one and I will collect," was Butler's rather contradictory threat, according to prosecutors.
The judge didn't ask Butler what, exactly, that meant during Wednesday's hearing, but did quiz him about his recollection of incidents described by trial witnesses. Butler's attorney asked for time to review trial transcripts before his client answered, which Arcara granted. The judge also wondered aloud whether three-and-a-half years, the top end of the advised sentencing range, was sufficient punishment.
It logically follows that the former Erie County District Attorney will also have a few questions for Celeste and Bellreng during their sentencing hearings.
The grandfatherly Celeste, whose deal with prosecutors includes a sentencing recommendation of five years, doesn't cut an intimidating figure. Due to heart problems, he needed to sit during parts of the hearing at which he pleaded guilty. But a union carpenter testified that Celeste had suggested he risked being attacked by 30 Local 91 members for having the audacity to unload a shipment of floor tiles, work that Celeste said belonged to his union.
Testimony against Bellreng was even more damning. Stevanovic said Local 91 picketers had shouted obscene threats, including promises to rape his wife and daughter. He said Bellreng's efforts at intimidation were particularly chilling.
"Do you ever ask yourself, 'Where are Alexander and Daniella right now?'" Stevanovic said Bellreng asked him.
Stevanovic, who had come from New Jersey to work on the water plant, said he didn't know how Bellreng could have known the names of his children back home.
The witness said Bellreng was more direct a few weeks later, when he told him, "Goran, don't worry. I'm coming tonight to take your head off."
That night, the explosive crashed through the window of the room where Stevanovic slept and went off about a foot from his head. The next day, Bellreng asked him, "Goran, how was sleeping in the fire last night?"
According to witnesses and court documents, Congi relished his role as Local 91 president. A state trooper who also owned a fence-construction company testified that Congi rolled up to a job at the Delta Sonic on Niagara Falls Boulevard in a Lincoln Continental, emerging to demand the hiring of union laborers.
After the trooper and his partner, also a member of the state police, refused, someone destroyed the half-completed fence in the middle of the night. After a surreal meeting at Local 91's Seneca Avenue headquarters with Congi, Quarcini and Dominick Dellaccio, another former president sentenced to a three-year term, the men ultimately agreed to pay into Local 91's benefit plan in return for being allowed to complete the fence.
Congi summed up the union's long-held attitude nicely during the water-plant hostilities, when he told the project manager for Sansla, the company doing the work at the water treatment plant, "This is Niagara Falls and this is our town."
Quarcini, of course, was the real power behind Local 91 from the mid-1960s until the federal indictments were handed down, but his death in July 2003 made Congi the main target of prosecutors by default.
With one former henchman after another agreeing to testify against him and no one left to roll on himself, Congi ultimately took the biggest fall. He already faces a recommended sentence of 15 years when he goes before Arcara five days before Christmas, if the judge thinks the term is long enough.
After last week's hearing, that's no sure thing.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | November 21 2006 |