United States v. LOC. 560, INTERN. BRO. OF TEAMSTERS

• Decision Date: 08 March 1984
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 82-689.
• Citation: 581 F. Supp. 279
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. LOCAL 560, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN, AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

581 F. Supp. 279

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. LOCAL 560, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN, AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 82-689.

United States District Court, D. New Jersey.

February 8, 1984.

As Amended March 8, 1984.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

W. Hunt Dumont, U.S. Atty. for the Dist. of New Jersey by Robert C. Stewart, Thomas L. Weisenbeck, Asst. U.S. Atty., Leopold Laufer, Sp. Atty., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Newark, N.J., for plaintiff.

Edward A. Cohen, Schneider, Cohen, Solomon & DiMarzio, Jersey City, N.J., for defendants Local 560 and the Severance Pay Plan.

Harvey Weissbard, West Orange, N.J., for defendants Provenzano, Sheridan, Dildine, Reynolds, Sciarra and Jaronko.

Herbert New, Brenner, New & Brenner, Livingston, N.J., for defendant Trucking Employees of North Jersey Welfare Fund.

Stephen Andretta and Gabriel Briguglio, pro se.

OPINION

HAROLD A. ACKERMAN, District Judge.

John L. Lewis, former president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the United Mine Workers once said that "Labor, like Israel, has many sorrows."

A careful review of the evidence in this unprecedented case reveals the verity of that observation.

It is not a pretty story. Beneath the relatively sterile language of a dry legal opinion is a harrowing tale of how evil men, sponsored by and part of organized criminal elements, infiltrated and ultimately captured Local 560 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the largest local unions in the largest union in this country.

This group of gangsters, aided and abetted by their relatives and sycophants, engaged in a multifaceted orgy of criminal activity. For those that enthusiastically followed these arrogant mobsters in their morally debased activity there were material rewards. For those who accepted the side benefits of this perverted interpretation of business unionism, see J. Hutchinson, The Imperfect Union p. 371, (1970), there was presumably the rationalization of "I've got mine, why shouldn't he get his." For those who attempted to fight, the message was clear. Murder and other forms of intimidation would be utilized to insure silence. To get along, one had to go along, or else.

It is important to state what the evidence in this case does and does not show.

It shows that a trade union which is by origin and nature a voluntary organization is susceptible to the malicious machinations of others, as Congress perceived in enacting the Landrum-Griffin and RICO Acts.

It does not demonstrate that unions or union officials in general are riddled with racketeering or corruption. Most authorities are convinced that the overwhelming number of unions and union officials are "untroubled by the problem of corruption." Id. Crooks and racketeers are anathema to a significant portion of the trade union movement. See id.; D. Dubinsky & A. Raskin, David Dubinsky: A Life With Labor (1977); P. Jacobs, The State of the Unions (1963). See also "The RICO Civil Fraud Action in Context: Reflections on Bennett v. Berg", 58 Notre Dame L.Rev. 237, 303 n. 170 (1982).

As Professor Hutchinson observed in his book The Imperfect Union—A History of Corruption in American Trade Unions (1970) at p. 7-8:

Corruption owes little more to immoral union leaders than it does to predatory employers who, throughout the history of American business, have sought by cheating and violence to circumvent the strictures of competition, unionization and the law. It is a companion of the corruption in politics and law enforcement which for generations has characterized some of the major cities of the nation, sheltering the guilty and embroiling the innocent in crime. It owes a debt to the insanity of Prohibition and its enduring legacy of organized defiance of the law. It thrives in the procedural jungle of the American criminal law. It stems from the social conditions of the cities—from the tensions of an immigrant society, the customs of racial discrimination and ethnic isolation, the miseries of the slums and the frustrations of the underprivileged, the ignorance of the poor and the indifference of the rich. It has, finally, drawn strength from a public philosophy which, in electing for the competitive society, has tended to trumpet only its virtues, according either praise or tolerance to the victors in a battle lightly burdened with rules."

Applying these precepts and the law applicable to this case I find that the record clearly demonstrates that the Provenzano brothers (Anthony, Nunzio and Salvatore) and their group betrayed the membership of Local 560.

David Dubinsky, former President of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union stated in his autobiography that "racketeering is the cancer that almost destroyed the American trade-union movement." D. Dubinsky & A. Raskin, supra. The metaphor of disease is apt. See P. Johnson, Modern Times p. 102 (1983). For reasons set forth below, I have determined in this case, in accordance with law and to secure justice, to use a judicial scalpel to excise this malignancy from this union and its members.

To do any less would be to ignore the laws of the land and do a disservice to the thousands of labor leaders who earn their daily bread by honestly striving to improve the wages, hours and working conditions of their members.

This is an action brought pursuant to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et seq.¹ Plaintiff United States alleges, inter alia, that Local 560 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America (Local 560), together with its Welfare and Pension Funds (Funds) and its Severance Pay Plan (Plan),² has become, through the actions of the individual defendants, a "captive labor organization." The United States seeks, first, the appointment of a receiver or trustee to serve in the capacity of the Local 560 Executive Board until such time as the membership can freely nominate and elect new officers. The complaint also seeks injunctive relief against defendants Salvatore Provenzano, Joseph Sheridan, Josephine Provenzano, J.W. Dildine, Stanley Jaronko, Thomas Reynolds, Sr., and Michael Sciarra, inter alia barring them from union office until such time as a democratic election of officers by the membership may be held. Finally, the complaint seeks injunctive relief against defendants Anthony Provenzano, Nunzio Provenzano, Stephen Andretta and Gabriel Briguglio, inter alia barring them from any further contacts with Local 560.

The complaint charges that the "Local 560 Enterprise"³ is an enterprise within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4).⁴ It further alleges that the individual defendants are associated together under the leadership of defendant Anthony Provenzano as the "Provenzano Group," and that this Group conspired, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d),⁵ to violate, and actually did violate, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(b) and (c).⁶

Specifically, paragraph 12(a) of the complaint alleges that the Provenzano Group, aided and abetted by past and present members of the Executive Board of Local 560 (including defendants Salvatore Provenzano, Joseph Sheridan, Josephine Provenzano, J.W. Dildine, Thomas Reynolds, Sr., Michael Sciarra, and Stanley Jaronko) unlawfully acquired and maintained, directly and indirectly, an interest in and control of the Local 560 Enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity in violation of § 1962(b) of the RICO Act. This racketeering activity was alleged to have involved murder and the systematic use of extortion, with the latter allegedly consisting of, according to the complaint, "the wrongful use of actual and threatened force, violence and fear of physical and economic injury in order to create within Local 560 a climate of intimidation which induced the members thereof to consent to the surrender of certain valuable property in the form of their union rights as guaranteed by the provisions of Sections 157 and 411 of Title 29 of the United States Code ...."⁷

The particular acts of the defendants which allegedly created the climate of intimidation which in turn allegedly induced the surrender of the members' rights are set out as subparagraphs (1) through (28)⁸ of paragraph 12(a). These alleged acts are:

(1) the June 1961 murder of Anthony Castellitto; (2) the August 1961 appointment of Salvatore Provenzano to the position of Trustee formerly occupied by Castellitto; (3) the September 1961 appointment of Salvatore Briguglio—the alleged murderer of Castellitto—to the position of Business Agent; (4) the February 1963 appointment of Nunzio Provenzano to the position of Business Agent following his January 1963 conviction for extortion; (5) the May 1963 murder of Walter Glockner; (6) the 1964 appointment of Robert A. Luizzi to the position of Business Agent in spite of a record of criminal convictions; (7) the May 1967 appointment of Luizzi to the position of Trustee; (8) the February 1969 appointment of Salvatore Briguglio to position of Business Agent following completion of a term of imprisonment for extortion; (9) the April 1969 appointment of Nunzio Provenzano to the position of clerk following completion of a term of imprisonment for extortion; (10) the 1970 appointment of Nunzio Provenzano to the position of Business Agent; (11) the 1971 appointment of Thomas Reynolds, Sr. to the position of Business Agent in spite of a record of criminal activity; (12) the 1972 appointment of Nunzio Provenzano to the position of Fund Trustee; (13) the 1972 appointment of Salvatore Briguglio to the position of Fund Trustee; (14) the allowance of frequent visitations by Armand Faugno and Thomas Andretta to the offices of Local 560; (15) the January 1963 appointment of Nunzio Provenzano to the position of Secretary-Treasurer; (16) the 1973 appointment of Reynolds to the position of Fund Trustee; (17) the 1974 resumption of duties as Business Agent by Salvatore

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