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The 14 members of Local 91 arrested Friday on federal racketeering, extortion and conspiracy charges each face the possibility of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
The bucks may stop there, but the blame doesn't for the very public secret that's helped keep development in Niagara County stuck in neutral for, oh, the last three decades or so. The shame spreads far beyond the 14 indictees plucked out of bed before dawn on Friday.
Let's start with County Legislator Dennis Virtuoso (D-Niagara Falls), who proudly takes thousands of dollars from Local 91's political action committee as gladly as a streetwalker grabs a $20. In return, Virtuoso performs such unsavory acts as appointing Paul Bellreng to the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency Board of Directors.
To be fair, Bellreng, one of the 14 defendants shackled and led into U.S. District Court last week, boasts some impressive planning credentials. For instance, according to the 54-page indictment made public Friday, he threatened to kill employees of a company working on an asbestos removal project who dared to perform work to which Bellreng felt he and his boys were entitled. The indictment alleges Bellreng later told employees of the same company, "I'm going to take your head off tonight." It was probably coincidental, but the same employees were injured, one permanently, when the house they were staying in was firebombed that evening.
You could also mention Bellreng's alleged participation in a Local 91 mob that attacked four union tilesetters during construction of the Wegman's on Military Road in 1998, but that would just be piling on.
Not that Virtuoso was particularly unique in his chumminess with Michael "Butch" Quarcini and the rest of the gang. Dozens of elected officials have taken blood money over the years in return for favors such as influencing Project Labor Agreements and interceding in court cases on the occasions when threats turned into violence on job sites throughout Niagara County.
Then there's the cabal of local contractors all too happy to cozy up with Local 91, since they knew the tiny fraction of the union that made up what federal investigators call "the goon squad" would enjoy keeping outside competition at bay. That bit of mutual back-scratching gave a handful of contractors a monopoly on what little construction work got done in Niagara County.
And let's not forget Local 91's $89,713-a-year den mother, Cheryl Cicero. Among the duties that come with that lofty price tag -- threatening to blacklist businesses that advertise in a certain weekly newspaper that's occasionally been a bit critical of her cash cow.
Yes, Local 91's annual charity golf tournament has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for local charities, most of them involving sick or disadvantaged children. Good for them. And big deal. Giving something back should be a core duty of any organization that reaps as much money from a community as Local 91 has from this one.
And finally, there's everyone, whether they sat in a judge's chair, a newspaper editor's office or their living room, or wore a badge, who knew damn well what's gone on around here since Lyndon Johnson was president and responded by winking, shrugging or looking the other way. Cowardice is no more attractive if it stems from fear or from indifference.
But there are those who deserve some praise, too.
Niagara County District Attorney Matt Murphy urged the feds to step in, and they did. The investigation that yielded all those indictments lasted for four years, through two grand juries, two U.S. Attorneys and two Special Agents in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Buffalo office. Niagara County Sheriff Tom Beilein assigned deputies to help, as did Niagara Falls Police chiefs Ernie Palmer and Christopher Carlin.
The officers who took those assignments spent countless hours, many of them undercover, overcoming misplaced loyalties, a strictly enforced code of silence and the very real threat of violence, to compile the evidence prosecutors presented to the grand jury.
The courage of the witnesses themselves can't be underestimated. Attorney Paul Cambria, who is representing Quarcini and has apparently watched "Norma Rae" and "FIST" a few too many times, told Channel 4 that Local 91 "has always been on the up-and-up," and questioned the anonymity of witnesses, saying, "You have to ask yourself, 'What's in it for them?'"
What's in it for them? The right to work for a living without fear of getting beaten to a pulp or having their homes firebombed, to name a couple things.
The defendants are sure to hide behind the legitimate labor rights that real men and women bled and died for throughout American history. But their perverse interpretation of those rights led them to threaten and attack not only unaffiliated workers, but members of other unions and even their own.
"The thing that makes this unique is that it's crime perpetrated by brothers and sisters of a union against brothers and sisters of a union," U.S. Attorney Michael A. Battle said Friday. "That's what makes it so despicable."
Oh, and convictions on many of the charges require forfeiture of property gained through the "criminal enterprise," so you can expect to see a significant decrease in black Lincoln Continentals on Seneca and Pine avenues.
Which is to say, none.
Gov. George Pataki flew in to join a slew of local politicos in announcing that they're very, very pleased that the Seneca Nation referendum on casino gambling passed (duh) and that "hurdles remain" (yawn).
Pataki offered some well-deserved kudos to State Sen. George Maziarz, the only Niagara County elected official at the state level to even seem like he's trying to accomplish anything, for pressing the issue in Albany.
Mayor Irene Elia, whose chief function at such gatherings is to make fellow Republicans Maziarz and Tim Demler look taller, especially when Pataki's around, received some halting half-praise from the governor for having "understood the importance of this opportunity for Niagara Falls."
Whatever that means.
On second thought, Herroner herself offered an interesting tidbit about one of Pataki's little-known accomplishments as governor.
"He's helped us achieve fiscal stability here in Niagara Falls," Elia said.
Didn't get a chance to ask the obvious follow-up question: When, exactly, did that happen? The trip to the airport provided a revelation for Baltimore Sun national reporter Mike Adams, in town to write a piece on casino gambling in Western New York. The well-traveled Adams was delighted to finally find an "International" airport with free parking.
No long lines to get through security, either.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | May 21 2002 |