back to Niagara Falls Reporter archive
Amidst swirling rumors of impending indictments against members of Laborers Local 91, the union's second-in-command Dominick Dellaccio quietly has retired, the Reporter has learned.
Dellaccio was widely thought to be the logical successor to union boss Michael "Butch" Quarcini, whose control of the union dates back more than three decades. Sources close to the union now say Quarcini's daughter, Cheryl Cicero, likely would assume command should Quarcini retire or step down.
A federal grand jury in Buffalo has been looking into the activities of Laborers Local 91 since February 1999. The grand jury is investigating charges that Local 91 members have repeatedly engaged in a pattern of intimidation and violence that has caused Niagara County construction costs to skyrocket and created a climate of fear for building contractors and members of other skilled trade unions.
"You guys have to know that building anything is a lot more expensive in Niagara Falls," said David Pemnan, president of Odyssey Builders of Erie, Pa. "I know of other contractors, union contractors, who have told me they wouldn't work in Niagara Falls."
Pemnan, a general contractor who built 10 stores around the country for the Advanced Auto chain, said the costs of building in Niagara County typically are 40 to 50 percent higher than in other locations. When the bids are broken down, areas not involving Local 91--such as roofing or heating and air conditioning--are in line with costs elsewhere, while concrete and other work employing Laborers typically costs double the norm, he added.
In the end, Pemnan passed the Niagara Falls Advanced Auto contract on to a local contractor, Johnson Building Co., in order to avoid any problems.
"Every supplier I talked to warned me about your community," he said. "I was told when I went up there to expect a visit from these guys, to the point where I said, 'I'm not even going to go there. It's not worth getting beat up over.'"
The Buffalo grand jury has been hearing testimony from contractors like Pemnan, as well as from members of other trade unions who have been beaten and harassed by Local 91 members.
Charges of corruption against branches of the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) are nothing new. Locals in New England and Chicago have been taken over by the federal government, as has Local 210 in Buffalo, which authorities said was being run by remnants of the Magaddino crime family led by Joseph "Lead Pipe" Todaro.
While Local 91 never has been formally identified as a corrupt union by the Justice Department, it has been the target of investigation by authorities in the past. In 1978, during the initial federal probe into LIUNA, syndicated newspaper columnist Jack
Anderson wrote about the relationship between Buffalo's Local 210 and what he called its "companion local," Local 91.
In his May 15, 1978, column, Anderson cited the testimony before a Senate subcommittee of Robert Stewart, then-head of the federal Organized Crime Strike Task Force offices in Buffalo and Newark, N.J. In his testimony, Stewart charged the Niagara Falls local was dominated by an unnamed organized crime figure, Anderson wrote.
"There have been persistent rumors over the last five years of extortionate demands upon industry, acts of property destruction and assorted misconduct," Stewart told the subcommittee. "Authorities have found it impossible, however, to develop a viable prosecution because the atmosphere of intimidation is so complete that no one is willing to testify."
That atmosphere persists today, nearly 25 years later. Sources told the Reporter, however, that the Buffalo grand jury has succeeded to a greater degree than ever before in getting people to talk about Laborers Local 91.
Ted Van Deusen, a local, non-union contractor who refuses to work in Niagara County because of the Laborers, would not discuss whether he has testified before the grand jury, although he has been interviewed on a number of occasions by federal, state and local investigators.
Long the target of threats and harassment, Van Deusen takes the intimidation seriously enough that he carries a $1 million life insurance policy should anything happen to him.
"This is so deeply embedded as business as usual that it's difficult for the authorities to do anything about it," he told the Reporter. "People in Niagara Falls have been living with this for so long they're either afraid or don't recognize there's anything illegal about it."