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Closing In On The Clintons

 

As the 2008 Presidential Primaries loom ever nearer increasing

interest

is being paid to the front-runner among the Democrats.

 

While the Republican race for President is still wide open it now

appears that Barack Hussein Obama and John Edwards, also known as

Jon Edwards

have been eclipsed by Hillary Rodham Clinton, who now appears to be

unstoppable

in her race for the nomination of the Democrats. As such she may well

become the next President of the United States of America.

 

What do we really know about this remarkable person?

 

 

Some of the material below is excerpted from:

Politics and Bedfellows An Age Old Story Told Once Again

do a search on that exact title to read more of that material

 

We do not know what to make of the gossip being circulated about

likely 2008 Dem Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton

these days.

Though the name Arthur Turco is known to few Americans today, if the

allegations

about his romantic and political relationship with Hillary Rodham

Clinton in

1969 when Hillary was at Yale turn out to be true Arthur Turco's

name might

become as much a household word as Monica Lewinsky's name was in the

late 1990s.

 

Unlike Monica Lewinsky however, Arthur Turco in 1969 was no starry

eyed 20

something intern being s-xually used and abused by the most charming

President

of the United States ever to hold that office.

 

Gerald Lefcourt, David Brothers, Abbie Hofmann, Dave Dellinger,

William

Kunstler, Jerry Rubin, and Arthur Turco can be seen at a Black

Panther Rally at

Federal Court, in a photo taken on March 22nd, 1969. Arthur Turco is

the clean

shaven white man in the dark glasses,wearing a tie with his hand in

the pocket

of his rain coat, standing behind bearded Jerry Rubin.

 

You can see the photo in which Turco appears at

KnowTheEnemy/

in the Birds of A Feather photo album at

http://ph.KnowTheEnemy/photos

 

Arthur Turco was the New York City based leader of a weird white

group called

THE PATRIOTS in 1969. THE PATRIOTS were allied with THE BLACK

PANTHERS and a

Puerto Rican group called THE YOUNG LORDS in something called THE

RAINBOW

COALITION. This was a different group from the Jesse Jackson related

Rainbow

Coalition group.

 

THE PATRIOTS operated relatively openly from an office in far uptown

Manhattan

but reputedly also used one or more covert " Safe House " style

apartments in the

CHELSEA section of Manhattan. Some of those " Safe House " style

apartments were

allegedly fortress like places,allegedly filled with heavy weapons

including

explosives, as well as handguns, and automatic weapons.

 

Some alleged background on Black Panther Party attorney and ally,

Arthur Turco

may be found at

 

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=11450

 

which describes Arthur Turco as the " Panthers' New York

lawyer,Arthur Turco. "

The article states that : " Caplan says he believes that the

Panthers' New York

lawyer, Arthur Turco, was the ringleader in the commission of this

crime. " He

was apparently in the house when the torture and the murder took

place and was

part of the conspiracy to kill and remove the body, "

 

Below is an example of a post which dates back to the Bill Clinton

era we found

describing some of the story.

 

" Back in 1969 a group of Black Panthers decided that a fellow black

named Alex Rackley needed to die. Rackley was a fellow Panther

suspected of

disloyalty. Rackley was first tied to a chair. Once safely

immobilized

his'friends'tortured him for hours by, among other things, pouring

boiling water

on him. When they

got tired of torturing Rackley, Black Panther member Warren Kimbo

took Mr.Rackley outside and put a bullet in his head. Rackley's body

was later

found floating in a river about 25 miles north of New Haven, Conn.

 

Perhaps at this point you're curious as to what happened to these

Black Panthers. In 1977, that's only eight years later, only one of

the killers

was still in jail. The shooter, Warren Kimbro, managed to get a

scholarship to

Harvard. He later became an assistant dean at Eastern Connecticut

State College.

Isn't that something? As a `60s radical you can pump a bullet into

someone's

head,and a few years later, in the same state, you can become an

assistant college dean! Only in America! Erica Huggins was the lady

who served

the Panthers by boiling the water for Mr.

Rackley's torture. Some years later Ms. Huggins was elected to a

California School Board.

 

 

How in the world do you think these killers got off so

easy? Maybe it was in some part due to the efforts of two people who

came to the

defense of the Panthers. These two people actually went so far as to

shut down

Yale University with demonstrations in defense of the accused Black

Panthers

during their trial. One of these people was none other than Bill Lan

Lee. Mr.

Lee, or

Mr. Lan Lee, as the case may be, isn't a college dean. He isn't a

member of a California School Board. He is now head of the U.S.

Justice

Department's Civil Rights Division.

 

O.K., so who was the other Panther defender?

 

Is this other notable Panther defender now a school board member? Is

this other Panther apologist now an assistant college dean? No,

Neither! The

other Panther defender was, like Lee, a radical law student at Yale

University

at the time. She is now known as The " smartest woman in the world. "

She is none

other

than...Hillary Rodham Clinton. "

 

We checked Hillary's official White House bio and found that:

 

" In 1969, Hillary entered Yale Law School, where she served on the

Board of Editors of Yale Law Review and Social Action... "

source:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/firstladies/hc42.html

We also dug up the 1997 piece below on Bill Lan Lee

 

" G.O.P Leader Says Nominee Will Be Halted November 10, 1997, Monday

By STEVEN A. HOLMES (New York Times) National Desk

Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 22, Column 1,

Senator Orrin G Hatch, chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee, says

nomination

of Bill Lan Lee, President Clinton's choice for Assistant Attorney

General for

Civil Rights, is dead; nomination has run into opposition among

Republicans, who

accuse him of supporting racial quotas and affirmative action... "

 

Want to know something really scary? We do not know if there is any

truth to them at all, but allegations are beginning to resurface

concerning the

alleged connections, which may have begun in 1969, between Hillary

Rodham,while

she and her husband to be Bill Clinton were Yale students, and

something callled

THE RAINBOW COALITION, not the one associated with Jesse Jackson,

but another

one, which was composed of 3 allied groups: THE BLACK PANTHERS, a

Puerto Rican

group called THE YOUNG LORDS, and a bizarre Maoist " white " group

called THE

PATRIOTS.

 

 

The so-called RAINBOW COALITION was an alliance between ARTHUR

TURCO'S white

terrorist group THE PATRIOTS, and the original BLACK PANTHERS,(not

to be

confused with a group using that name today), and a Puerto Rican

group called

THE YOUNG LORDS in 1969 when Hillary and Bill Clinton were Yale

students.

 

 

A relatively covert alliance also existed between THE PATRIOTS and

heavily armed

international arab terrorists,including those controlled by

arafat,operating

even then in the United States,and elsewhere. In particular the

allegations

center around the alleged connections between Hillary Rodham and

Arthur Turco,

and others. Turco was the leader of THE PATRIOTS. THE PATRIOTS

members wore

dungaree " uniforms " including dungaree pants and dungaree jackets

and held

Maoist style " self-criticism sessions " .

 

 

THE PATRIOTS were allegedly heavily involved in drug use, which

included

" snorting " horse tranquilizer drugs, among other things, and

allegedly were

regular visitors to YALE.

 

They also allegedly regularly read responsively from Lin Piao's

radical book.

( " Encyclopedia of World Biography on Lin Piao

(1907-1971) was a Chinese Communist military commander and political

leader. His distinguished military career and loyalty to the

principles of Mao

Tse-tung were the basis for his rise to second position in the

Chinese Communist

leadership. He was involved in an unsuccessful coup d'etat in

1971. " )

 

 

We would like to know what, if anything, you have found about this

story? Is there any truth to it at all? We do not know.

 

Then there is the matter of the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. Famed

Jewish columnist

A.M.Rosenthal of THE NEW YORK TIMES called Bill Clinton, who he had

backed in

the 1992 Presidential race against then President George Herbert

Walker Bush,

BOMBER BILL because of Clinton's prosecution of the Balkan Wars of

the 1990s.

In those wars some 5,000 Serbian civilians were slaughtered in

Guernica like air

raids. Many of the same targets in Serbia that were bombed by the

Luftwaffe in

World War Two were bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1999.

 

Bill Clinton turned the US Airforce into AIR BIN LADEN, flying

missions against

Serbians who were fighting against Osama bin Laden's forces in the

Balkans.

 

Why would Bill Clinton, the former anti-war activist of the

1960s,who had

demonstrated against the Vietnam War,wage war against Serbia as

President of the

United States in the 1990s?

 

The 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution limits Presidential terms

of office to

2 terms. Bill Clinton was elected to those 2 terms and served them.

His last

full year in office was 2000, the year his wife, Hillary Rodham

Clinton was

elected to the US Senate from New York State. He left office on

January 20th,

2001.

 

Many observers viewed the 2000 US Senate race in which she was

elected from New

York State as a stepping stone to the White House for Hillary Rodham

Clinton.

 

In New York State winning state wide Republican candidates need the

nomination

of the New York State Republican Party to be augmented by the

nominaton of the

New York State Conservative Party.

 

Winning statewide without BOTH nominations is not an easy thing for

any

Republican candidate in New York State.

 

The website of the New York State Conservative Party proudly

proclaims : " The

1994 elections were a breakthrough for the Conservative Party as we

provided the

margin of victory for Governor George E. Pataki with the 326,605

votes cast on

our line. "

source:

http://www.cpnys.org/history/history.html

 

In New York State the votes of candidates on for example the

Republican Party

line may be combined with votes for the same candidates received on

for example

the New York State Conservative Party line.

 

Thus winning the nomination of the New York State Conservative Party

is vital to

making a successful statewide run for office in New York State.

 

Things were not shaping up at all well for Rudy Guiliani, who was

the odds on

favorite for the Republican nomination for the US Senate race in

2000 against

Hillary Rodham Clinton.

 

 

" Giuliani at Fund-Raiser, but Not Conservative Party's

November 17, 1999, Wednesday

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN (New York Times)Metropolitan Desk

Late Edition - Final, Section B, Page 5, Column 1

Mayor Rudolph W Giuliani attends Broadway fund-raiser for his

presumptive United

States Senate campaign, but he is left out of State Conservative

Party's annual

fall cocktail party—which may have even more important implications

for his

political future; Conservative Party chairman Michael R Long says

Giuliani was

not invited because he has not yet expressed interest in winning

party's

endorsement… "

 

To his credit then Governor George W. Bush did what he could to

pitch in to help

Rudy Guiliani.

 

" Bush Offers Giuliani Help On the Right

November 30, 1999, Tuesday

By ELISABETH BUMILLER (New York Times)Metropolitan Desk

Late Edition - Final, Section B, Page 1, Column 5,

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, on his first political trip

since Hillary

Rodham Clinton announced her intention to run for United States

Senate, basks in

praise of political benefactor, Texas Governor George W. Bush.

Bush, at rally

in Austin, Texas, volunteers to help Giuliani win endorsement from

New York

State Conservative Party in his likely race against Hillary Clinton;

endorsement

has been held up over Giuliani's position on abortion rights; at

issue is

Giuliani's opposition to ban on what critics call `partial-birth'

abortions… "

 

The alleged Clinton master plan to win Hillary Rodham Clinton a seat

in the US

Senate from New York State as a vital stepping stone to the White

House was

built on a very simple proposition:

DIVIDE AND CONQUER.

 

Winning that seat in the Senate for Hillary in 2000 could

theoretically be

accomplished by assuring that the 2000 US Senate nominaton of the

New York

State Conservative Party did not go to the 2000 US Senate nominee of

the New

York State Republican Party.

 

But how could such a thing be accomplished? Who could be persuaded

to split the

right so that Hillary Rodham Clinton could be elected to the US

Senate from New

York State in 2000?

 

Ominously it was on May Day of 2000 that the following happened:

 

" Giuliani Gets A New Rival On the Right

May 1st, 2000, Monday

By ADAM NAGOURNEY (New York Times) Metropolitan Desk

Late Edition - Final, Section B, Page 1, Column 6,

Former United States Congressman from Westchester County Joseph J

DioGuardi, in

move that could complicate Mayor Rudolph W Giuliani's campaign for

United States

Senate, says that he will seek support of Conservative, Right-to-

Life and

Independence Parties in campaign for Senate; repeatedly assails

Giuliani as

being out of step with Conservative-minded Republicans… "

 

Who was Former United States Congressman from Westchester County

Joseph J

DioGuardi, and how did he fit in to the alleged Clinton master plan

to win

Hillary Rodham Clinton a seat in the US Senate from New York State

as vital

stepping stone to the White House?

 

 

DioGuardi has been described by New York City's Village Voice

newspaper as :

" NEW YORK'S KOSOVO KINGPIN "

http://www.villagevoice.com/features/9915/vest.shtml

 

 

In 2000 DioGuardi was poised to give not-so-hilarious Hillary Rodham

Clinton a seat in the US Senate from New York by virtue of his own

campaign for that seat that would have split right-wing opposition

to

Hillary, thus ensuring her election.

 

We opposed Ms.Clinton then,and we oppose her now.

Unlike Ms.Clinton who favors a so-called

" palestinian " state we are opposed to such an entity coming into

existence. We were also opposed to Clinton's anti-Serbian policy in

the Balkans.

There is more data

available on the so-called " palestinian " state issue:

" B'NAI B'RITH DISAPPOINTED WITH THE FIRST LADY'S COMMENTS ON A

PALESTINIAN STATE " http://bnaibrith.org/pr/hillaryclinton.html

http://www.usaid-wbg.org/98dec14a.html

A group calling itself the " National Association of Arab Americans "

http://www.naaa.net/alerts/aa050898.html urged its members to

" Please write, phone, or fax the First Lady at the following address

to express your appreciation for her remarks " which favored a

so-called

" palestinian " state.) Nor has Hillary, not-so-Hilarious Clinton

been squeamish about supporting Albanians

" Hillary Clinton awarded Albania's highest civilian honor "

http://www.cnn.co.uk/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/06/22/hrc.award/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/html/columns/hrc040799.ht

 

ml

Please see the url below from THE NEW YORK TIMES regarding the 2000

DioGuardi US Senate candidacy.

http://www10.nytimes.com:80/library/politics/camp/050100sen-ny.html

DioGuardi hopes to run on the Conservative Party, Right-to-Life

and Independence Party lines in New York State. The Independence

Party was the name for the Reform Party in New York State which then

appeared likely to have Patrick J. Buchanan as its Presidential

standard bearer in the fall 2000 elections.

 

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/buchanan_intro.

 

html

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/on_nazis.html

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/on_segregation.

 

html

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/on_women.html

http://www.adl.org/presrele/holna_52/2585_52.html

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/window_buchanan

 

..html

http://www.adl.org/presrele/asus_12/3481_12.html

http://www.adl.org/frames/front_buchanan_own_words.html

http://www.adl.org/backgrounders/reform_party_and_fulani_and_newman.h

 

tml

http://www.adl.org/frames/front_background_article2.html

 

" Buchanan has consistently portrayed war criminals as

patriotic Americans, innocent victims of " revenge-obsessed Nazi

hunters " in Washington. Virtually everything the accused and their

defenders have said he accepts as truth, and, in the words of one

critic, he wages " journalistic guerilla warfare " on their behalf.

Says

Neal Sher, former director of the U.S. Justice Department's Office

of

Special Investigations: " Buchanan went to bat for every Nazi war

criminal in America. " Liberty Lobby, the leading anti-Semitic and

racist organization in America, overwhelmingly endorsed Pat Buchanan

during the 1996 presidential primaries. An editorial in its

publication, The Spotlight, pointed out that " the 112 issues or

legislative positions that Liberty Lobby has taken over the past 40

years...shows that Pat Buchanan stands with us. " The predominant

issue

they share is Holocaust revisionism, the spearhead of the

international anti-Semitic movement. Buchanan used his syndicated

column and his office as communications director in the Reagan White

House from 1981-1987 to assist pro-Nazi Eastern European

organizations

in trying to block the denaturalization and deportation of Karl

Linnas, John Demjanjuk, and at least seventeen others who had been

charged by the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special

Investigations or had been convicted in federal courts of concealing

war crimes in order to gain illegal entry into the U.S. The Karl

Linnas Case In 1981 the Federal District Court in Westbury, NY

stripped 67-year-old Karl Linnas of his citizenship for having lied

to

immigration officials thirty years earlier about his Nazi past.

Linnas's crimes, the judge said, " were such as to offend the decency

of any civilized society. " From 1941-43 Linnas had commanded a Nazi

concentration camp at Tartu, Estonia, where he directed and

personally

took part in the murder of thousands of men, women, and children who

were shot into anti-tank ditches. A 1986 federal appeals court

upheld

his deportation order, ruling that the evidence against the

defendant

was " overwhelming and largely uncontroverted. " Summarily rejecting

the

court's findings because evidence had been obtained from the Soviet

Union, Buchanan orchestrated a national media effort to exonerate

Linnas, demanding that his citizenship be reinstated. He championed

the Linnas cause in his syndicated newspaper column and TV program

" Crossfire, " and arranged for then U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese

III to meet with him and members of Eastern European organizations

who

hailed Linnas as a hero. On March 31, l987, Menachem Rosensaft,

founder of the International Network of Children of Holocaust

Survivors, wrote a New York Times Op-Ed piece calling for a

congressional investigation to determine whether any American

official

or functionary had intervened on Mr. Linnas's behalf. Buchanan

responded by saying it was the Office of Special Investigations that

needed to be investigated. " Let us get it all out in the open, " he

wrote, " nothing un-American can live in the sunlight. " Attorney

General Meese delayed the deportation of Linnas as long as possible,

all the while searching for a haven. After sixteen countries had

refused, Panama agreed to accept Linnas " on humanitarian grounds. "

News of the decision prompted Rosensaft and others to intercede with

Panamanian officials in Washington, who told them that their

government had not been informed of Linnas's wartime atrocities.

Panama withdrew its offer and issued a statement saying that " our

country and our Government reject and condemn the crimes committed

by

fascists. " On April 20, 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear

a final appeal. At that point Meese was legally bound to comply with

the deportation order. Linnas was flown to the Soviet Union and

three

months later died in a prison hospital while awaiting trial. "

http://uahc.org/rjmag/1096ca.html

 

The obvious question came to mind. Was the potential third party

DioGuardi 2000 Senate candidacy, which could have guaranteed Hillary

the US Senate seat from New York a " big payoff " for the Clintons for

the 1999 pro-Albanian Balkan war against Serbia which saw Kosovo

stolen from Serbia?

 

 

http://aacl.com/indexmain.html

is the url of a group which describes itself at that website as

" the Albanian American Civic League. The Civic League was founded

by former Congressman Joseph DioGuardi and a

board of Albanian Americans in 1989 as the only registered

lobby in Washington, DC, representing the concerns and

interests of the Albanian people.

 

Pay close attention to the phrase " living side by side in " found in

the quote below, and note how it has since been used by advocates of

a so-called Two State Solution, which envisages a so-

called " palestinian " state " living side by side in " so-

called " peace " with Israel.

 

 

In reality the so-called Two State

Solution is more like Hitler's infamous FINAL SOLUTION, as it is

really a Two Step or Two Stage plan, with the first step being get

Israel to hand over everything it will without total war, and then

wage total war against Israel from the land Israel hands over to

destroy the rest of Israel.

 

The self-described

 

" purpose of the Civic League is to further the human rights and the

national cause of the divided nation of more than seven million

Albanians living side by side in the Balkans in Albania, Kosova,

western Macedonia, southeastern Montenegro, Presheve, Medvegje,

Bujanovc (southern Serbia), and Chameria (northern Greece). By

bringing the political perspectives of 400,000 Albanian Americans to

the US Government, the civic League works to end the repression

and oppression of Albanians living under hostile Slavic Communist

regimes in the Balkans and to preserve the culture, identity and

human rights of Albanians throughout the world. "

 

 

While you are digesting that quote, which sounds to me to be more

than a bit like the propaganda sprouted by the nazis about the

so-called " Sudetenland "

 

http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/Chlup/chluplinks/sudeten.html

http://motlc.wiesenthal.org/albums/palbum/p02/a0133p5.html

http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/Chlup/chluplinks/munich.html

http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/Chlup/czechcon.html

 

and other places inhabited by Germans and others which used the

German population as a pretext for annexation and in some cases war

by Germany.

 

Saddam did the same thing when he move arabs into Kurdish sections

of so-called Iraq.

 

Syria has moved a million so-called " civilian " FIFTH COLUMNISTS into

Lebanon, a nation which numbers under four million people, not

counting those million Syrian FIFTH COLUMNISTS.

 

 

NATO bombed Belgrade TV repeatedly, after Belgrade TV

started to show the comedic film " Wag the Dog " which is about a US

President who starts an Albanian War while he is in the midst of a

s-x scandal.

 

 

Ken Starr, where are you now that we really do need you? (Ken Starr

was the anti-Clinton prosecutor who got nowhere in his attempts to

oust Bill Clinton from the Presidency.)

 

 

Some more thoughts from a different source are quoted below:

" Fri, 2 Jul 1999 SendMeHack SendMeHack at aol.com

VOICE OF THE GRUNT

SPECIAL REPORT

FROM BEN WORKS BUYING AN INTERVENTION:

KOSOVO AND ALBANIAN PAC MONEY IN CONGRESS By Benjamin Works,,

The Strategic Issues Research Institute Hack and I, along with a

select group of others, have been at war with the KLA over its

heroin

and terrorist connections. We also knew something about how

political

money bought this war policy. Here's the story. Back in 1995, late

in

the Bosnian war, I got a reference to a 1986 Senate Resolution

proposed by Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, decrying Yugoslavian

official

oppression of the Albanian population of Kosovo-that's 1986, when

the

Albanian Autonomous government was still fully operational. Joseph

DioGuardi, a New York Republican, sponsored the companion House

Resolution, both of which never emerged from committee. I got a copy

of that Senate Resolution Nr. 150 from the Congressional Register of

June 19, 1986 and then let it sit in my file for a long time, while

the NATO occupation of Bosnia appeared to keep things calm.

Meanwhile, Bob Dole managed to lose the 1996 Presidential Election,

then vigorously supported Mr. Clinton's year-by-year extensions for

keeping some 6900 US soldiers in Bosnia.

 

 

As the KLA insurrection in

Kosovo reached civil war levels, I began to think about that

resolution and how it misrepresented history. I had done

considerable

reading on the origins of the Yugoslav conflicts, pulling Washington

Post, New York Times and other reports from the 1980s, bearing on

Kosovo and the collapse of the Federative Republic's communist

government under the pressure of ethnic-nationalism.

 

Well, pieces fit together showing that all along it has been the

ethnic

nationalist fascist losers of World War II in Croatia, Bosnia and

Kosovo who

have been exploiting the political process in Germany and the United

States.

Their goal has been to effect the division of Yugoslavia and the

cleansing of

Serbian populations from their territories, while purporting

that " Greater

Serbia " was the menace to European security and not the post-

fascist " Greater

Croatia " and " Greater Albania. "

 

 

Survivors of the Croat Ustashe movement in southern Germany began

their work in the 1960s, but Joseph DioGuardi must be given credit

for a sustained campaign to influence Congress beginning in the

mid-1970s. DioGuardi, an Albanian American whose ancestors came from

an Albanian transplant community in the heel of Italy, sat in

Congress for several years in the mid-1980s as a Conservative

Republican from New York's Westchester County, but creating a

Greater Albania was his agenda as a map on his website shows

(www.aapac.com).

 

 

" His Political Action

Committee (PAC) activities are easy to follow from 1988 on. What

makes the PAC and individual contributions to campaigns more

interesting is the demonstrated connection between the Kosovo Heroin

Mafia, its " pizza connection " distribution ( " inherited " from the

Gambino crime family) and money-laundering networks, and the number

of pizzaria owner-contributors listed in DioGuardi's filings. The

Croats and Albanians came up with big pots of laundered money, then

spread it around selectively, with American politicians helping to

persuade other members in Congress.

 

 

I have indications of a political alliance between DioGuardi and Bob

Dole going as far back as the early 1970s, but have not yet got all

the evidence in hand. What I do have is sufficient to reach

tentative conclusions about how foreign policy, in a democracy, can

be " bought " -that is precisely what happened in the case of the

Kosovo Air War. In early 1987, kicking off his 1988 bid to wrest the

GOP nomination from then-vice president George Bush, Dole received

$1.2 million from Albanian American supporters in New York City,

while DioGuardi received $50,000 at the same dinner.

 

 

I expect the funding trail goes back further, at least to Dole's

1976

campaign.It certainly continued from 1987 through to the present.

 

As the collapse of Yugoslavia loomed, the Croatian and Albanian

lobbies continued their campaign:

 

Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, Mar 31, 1993 issue,

reported as much as $50 million was larded around Capitol Hill in a

two-year period which saw the defeat of George Bush and led to Bob

Dole's control of the Republican party: The United States Congress,

still reeling from a series of financial scandals involving

representatives and senators, is now bracing for a new problem: the

massive financial " contributions " which have been made to election

funds of politicians by Croatian sources over the past two to three

years.

 

 

One Congressional investigator told Defense & Foreign Affairs

Strategic Policy that the donations and expenditures on Washington

lobbying by the Croatians over the past two years " could well exceed

$50-million. "

 

 

" Much of this came directly from Croatian lobbyists,

and some from Croatian American businessmen " Many of the campaign

contributions have been recorded legally, " the investigator said,

" but many are questionable. But what is more important is that there

has been a pervasive attempt to push the United States along a line

defined by foreign powers-Croatia and Germany-and it has not been

subtle. Elected officials are being told to either support the

Croatian line or face either a removal of funding or are told that

funding will be given to their opponents. Or they are literally

bribed into supporting the Croatian line.

 

 

 

This was going on long before Croatia even made its open bid for

recognition as an independent state. " Now, as to individual

contributions, there are campaign contribution limits on

individuals, then there are Political Action Committees

(PACs), " Soft Money " contributed to the parties and fed back to

candidates, and there is the time-honored

custom of passing bundles of hundred dollar bills in brown paper

bags to favored candidates. Federal Election Commission (FEC)

records are on-line (http://www.tray.com/fecinfo/)

and I have been able retrieve records for Joseph DioGuardi's PACs

going back to the 1988 election cycle, and have also tested Bob

Dole's 1996 Campaign and Liddy Dole's Campaign-2000.

 

 

It is all there in the lists of candidates and contributors. In

particular, most of the Congressmen speaking loudest against Serbia

and Serbs are those receiving money from DioGuardi's PAC. Some have

simply been beguiled,others may be more disingenuous.

 

 

Recipients come from both sides of the aisle but are mostly members

of the House or Senate foreign relations

committees...These records do not reveal monster sums of money, but

demonstrate the tip of the iceberg, where " soft money, " individual

declared contributions and bags full of $100 bills also find their

way to select candidates.

 

It is clear that Bob Dole and Joe DioGuardi, in league with Croat

and Bosnian fascist emigrees, worked very effectively to set up US

foreign policy to dismantle Yugoslavia and ruin the Serb people.

They have succeeded admirably because they were organized and

persistent, while their opponents were disorganized and, ultimately,

outnumbered by the overwhelming flood of media propaganda.

 

 

Now, the US taxpayer is on the hook for Billions of Dollars, while

our service

personnel will be tied down for years in Bosnia and Kosovo,again

attempting the

kind of nation building that failed so

spectacularly in Somalia and Haiti. For those wishing to inspect the

details of these fundraising, I have loaded the summary lists

compiled thus far at my website along with a companion reading file

on the KLA and Heroin: "

 

http://www.siri-

us.com/backgrounders/Archives_Kosovo/AlbanianAmericanPac-1980-

98.html

 

 

and

http://www.siri-us.com/backgrounders/Archives_Kosovo/KLA-Drugs.html

 

see also:

http://www.truthinmedia.org/TruthinMedia/Kosovo/Peace/ps13.html

 

http://glasgowcrew.tripod.com/albanian.html

 

" I am not naive, " KT McFarland told the Republican Convention in

late May(of 2006), as she announced her continuing campaign to take

a senate

seat from former First Lady Hillary Clinton. " I know Mrs. Clinton

has

considerable resources and advantages and that the race ahead will

be

formidable. Let's face it, at this point she's probably better known

in Albania

than I am in Albany. "

source:

http://www.politicalnotebook.org/2006/06/to_feel_better_.html

 

What do you think? Did the Bill and Hillary Clinton anti-Serbian

Balkan War of 1999 almost reap its reward with a seat in the US

Senate almost being handed to Hillary, not-so-Hilarious Clinton by

former New York Congressman Joseph DioGuardi?

 

" 15 YEARS OF THE ALBANIAN AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE

February 1999. Congressman Jim Traficant joins a Civic League

delegation to Tirana to speak at an international conference on the

independence of Kosova. "

SOURCE:

http://aacl.com/12m.htm

Note: re above Albanians spell Kosovo with an a at the end of it

rather than an

o, hence the Albanian spelling Kosova above.

 

Shirley A. Cloyes married Joseph DioGuardi in June 1998 according to

the

material about her excerpted from below in which she is described

as " Balkan

Affairs Adviser " to the Albanian American Civic League,whose

President is Joseph

DioGuardi, which states that : " In 1983, she coauthored a book

entitled To Work

and To Love with German political theologian Dorothee Soelle and

joined the

staff of The Seabury Press as an editor. Following the closure of

the house in

1984, she became marketing director and editorial consultant in

Black and

women's studies at Orbis Books.

 

In 1986, she joined the staff of Lawrence Hill & Company, an

offshoot of the

breakup of Hill & Wang, as associate publisher. The press

specialized in African

American and African studies, the Middle East, women's studies, and

controversial domestic and international political issues. When

Larry Hill died

in 1988, she took over the house and was its publisher until the end

of 1995.

Some of the noteworthy titles that she published are The Politics of

Heroin: CIA

Complicity in the Global Drug Trade by Alfred W. McCoy, Assata: An

Autobiography

by Assata Shakur, Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa,

England, and

the Caribbean by Jan Carew, My Friend, the Enemy by Uri Avnery, and

M.I.A. or

Mythmaking in America by H. Bruce Franklin.

 

In 1995, she published Yugoslavia's Ethnic Nightmare, the first book

on the

causes and far-reaching consequences of the Balkan conflict written

from the

perspective of Bosnian Muslim, Croatian, Serbian, and Macedonian

journalists who

opposed the war inside the former Yugoslavia. That year she became

the Balkan

Affairs Adviser to the Albanian American Civic League. She has since

written and

lectured widely about the Albanian dimension of the Balkan conflict

and made

eight trips to the region.

 

Cloyes proposed the first Congressional hearing on the Albanian

dimension of the

Balkan conflict. Following the hearing in February 1995, which

included

representatives from

all the Albanian lands in the former Yugoslavia, she and Civic

League President

Joseph DioGuardi traveled with Yugoslav dissident Mihaljo Mihaljov

to Macedonia

at the invitation of Albanian leaders there to monitor the reopening

of the

Albanian-language University of Tetova. The Macedonian government

attacked the

university on the morning of their departure, killing a student,

wounding

hundreds, and jailing the professors. In September of that year, she

traveled to

Tirana with DioGuardi and Congressman Benjamin Gilman, chair of the

House

Committee on International

Relations, to meet with then President Sali Berisha and to Istanbul

to make the

case for the

the independence of Kosova at the National Press center and at the

University of

Marmara.

 

Cloyes has testified before Congress at two historic turning points

in the life

of the Albanian nation. In July 1996, she testified on behalf of the

State of

Albania before the House Committee on International Relations and

exposed the

role of Nicholas Gage of the Panepirotic Federation and the Albanian

Communists

in attempting to overthrow the democratically elected government of

Sali

Berisha. In 1998, she testified in support of U.S. troop deployment

in Kosova,

following Bob Dole, Jean Kirkpatrick, and Henry Kissinger.

 

In February 1998, after the Serbian army attacked Drenice, Cloyes

worked with

CNN to gain more complete coverage of the crisis in Kosova. In

March, she and

DioGuardi shifted the focus of a Congressional hearing with U.S.

Balkan envoy

Robert Gelbard from Bosnia to Kosova, and positioned the questions

that forced

Gelbard to retract his earlier depiction of the KLA as a " terrorist "

organization. In August of that year, she published two major

articles on U.S.

foreign policy in the Balkans: " The Agony of Kosova " and " Presiding

over

Genocide: The Shame of the West. " Cloyes is the author of the Civic

League's

October 1999 public declaration, entitled " Resolving the Albanian

National

Question, " which examines the internal and external factors that

stand in the

way of creating a free and independent Kosova and bringing a just

and lasting

peace to the Balkans.

 

With the start of the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia in March

1999, Cloyes

and DioGuardi appeared separately and together on more than 50 radio

and TV

broadcasts. Since the war ended in June 1999, they have made three

trips to

Kosova to report back to Congress on postwar conditions.

 

Cloyes and DioGuardi were married in June 1998. "

 

SOURCE:

http://aacl.com/shirley2.html

If the name Assata Shakur in the bio of Mrs. Joseph DioGuardi above

rang any

bells with you it is likely that you recall that Assata Shakur is

the alias of

Joanne Chesimard. Recall that the bio of Mrs. Joseph DioGuardi above

states that

among " the noteworthy titles that she published " was " Assata: An

Autobiography

by Assata Shakur "

 

For those who may be unfamiliar with Joanne Chesimard a.k.a. Assata

Shakur the

article below may be helpful:

 

" Trooper Executed By Female Militant

 

New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster was murdered by JoAnne

Chesimard. On

May 2, 1973, New Jersey State Police Troopers James Harper and

Werner Foerster

were patrolling the New Jersey Turnpike in the East Brunswick area.

They stopped

a car with three occupants and began to question them. The female

passenger,

JoAnne Chesimard, was a member of the Black Liberation Army. She

suddenly pulled

out a semi-automatic pistol and opened fire. Trooper Foerster was

struck twice

in the chest and Trooper Harper was hit in the shoulder. Chesimard

then picked

up Trooper Foerster's service weapon and shot him twice in the head,

execution

style, while he lay in the road.

Chesimard then picked up Trooper Foerster's service weapon and shot

him twice in

the head, execution style, while he lay in the road.

Killer Escapes

 

JoAnne Chesimard, a member of the Black Liberation Army and

convicted murderer

Chesimard was quickly captured, convicted and sentenced to life plus

26 to 33

years in prison—authorities wanted to make sure this dangerous woman

would never

roam the streets again. But despite their best efforts, Chesimard

wasn't going

to let the law stop her. On November 2, 1979, Chesimard escaped from

prison with

the help of a domestic terrorist group. In the early 1980's, she

resurfaced in

Cuba under the protection of Cuban Premier Fidel Castro.

 

The Fight For Justice Continues

 

$1 million reward poster for Chesimard

Two generations of New Jersey State Police detectives have been

assigned to the

fugitive investigation since Chesimard's escape. Authorities refuse

to let

Chesimard go without a fight—Chesimard has now been placed on all of

the

terrorist watch lists and there is a $1 million reward for

information leading

to her arrest. Authorities hope the reward will destabilize

Chesimard's sense of

security inside Cuba and lead to her capture, and subsequently, her

return to

New Jersey. "

 

source:

http://www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=31956

 

The terrorist group mentioned above: " the Black Liberation Army "

was an offshoot of the original BLACK PANTHER PARTY.

 

Arthur Turco associate Twyman Myers left the BLACK PANTHER PARTY

to join " the Black Liberation Army " .

 

If you have never heard of Twyman Myers it may be because he is

dead.

Myers was a young man when he left the BLACK PANTHER PARTY to join

" the Black Liberation Army " .

 

The article below mentions the late Twyman Myers

 

" 30 Years in the Making—Justice at Last for Slain Officer

 

In the early hours of 3 November 1971, a young Atlanta police

officer by the

name of Jimmy Greene was ambushed and killed as he sat in his patrol

wagon

eating his late-night supper. On 13 October 2003—some 32 years later—

 

the man

responsible was found guilty of his murder in Fulton County Superior

Court.

 

 

Freddie Hilton (51) was convicted of murder in the long-ago death of

Jimmy

Greene in a case prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Al Dixon,

Senior

Assistant District Attorney Michele McCutcheon, and Senior Assistant

District

Attorney Peggy Katz. Atlanta Police Detective Jimmy Rose and Senior

Investigator

M.C. Cox of the District Attorney's Office investigated the case.

Judge

Stephanie Manis will sentence Hilton on 10 November, and he faces a

possible

double life sentence in prison.

 

 

At the time of the murder, Hilton was a member of an organization

known as the

" Black Liberation Army, " a militant group infamous for attacks on

law

enforcement officers in New York City and across the country. A

handful of the

group's members had come to Atlanta after breaking away from the

Black Panther

Party in the early 1970s. Hilton was among these.

 

 

Officer Greene, engaged to be married and the father of one infant

daughter, was

sitting in his vehicle at a gas station at the intersection of

Memorial Drive

and Boulevard when he was approached by Hilton and his now-dead co-

conspirator

Twyman Meyers. Hilton shot Officer Greene three times at close

range, stole his

revolver and badge, and fled the scene. A witness saw Greene slumped

over in the

front seat and soon realized he had been shot. Greene died two hours

later.

 

 

Several other former BLA members testified at the trial that Hilton

and Meyers

returned to the group's residence where the pair bragged of the

killing.

 

 

Shortly after the incident, Atlanta police found a witness who said

he heard

Hilton confess to the killing, but then-District Attorney Lewis

Slaton felt

there was not enough evidence to bring formal charges. So the story

ended

there…or so it seemed.

 

 

In early 2001, Detective Rose received a call from New York City

Police

Detective Chris Karolkowski who had come across Hilton as a suspect

in a child

molestation case and soon discovered that he had been the prime

suspect in

Greene's murder. Rose soon re-opened the case, and, with the help of

Investigator Cox, a Grand Jury indicted Hilton for the murder in

July of last

year. (Incidentally, Rose and Cox received the National Association

of Police

Organizations' highest honor last year for their work on the case.)

Hilton, who

had changed his name to Kamau Sadiki and was now working in

telecommunications

in New York, was brought back to Atlanta to face trial.

 

 

Aside from justice for Officer Greene, perhaps the most positive

aspect of this

painful incident was the re-uniting of Greene's long-estranged

daughter Melody

Adams (now 34) of North Carolina with aunts and uncles she had never

known.

Hearing about the trial in the news, Adams traveled to Atlanta to

sit in on the

trial and soon revealed her identity to other family members in

attendance. A

family long-separated by a brutal crime was now re-united. "

 

SOURCE:

http://www.fultonda.org/featuredarticle/30years.htm

Why is Joe DioGuardi so happy?

by Jared Israel

[27 February 2000]

Here's John McCain at a campaign rally with Joseph DioGuardi, a

former

Congressman and head of the Albanian political action committee

which raised

huge amounts for American politicians (for instance, Bob Dole) who

in turn have

supported the on-going attacks on Serbia.

 

Notice the scarf DioGuardi is wearing. That double-headed eagle was

the insignia

of the World War II Nazi Skanderbeg SS division. (See document on

left; click to

enlarge.) Among other achievements, this Nazi outfit massacred

Kosovo's Jews in

the streets of Pristina and shipped the survivors to the Bergen-

Belsen and

Treblinka death camps.

 

Why is McCain holding Presidential campaign rallies with this man

who proudly

sports a Nazi emblem? And why is DioGuardi so happy?

 

www.tenc.net/yugo.htm

Emperor's Clothes articles dealing with media misinformation and

the breakup of

Yugoslavia

 

" MONEY FROM THE AMERICAN MUSLIM ALLIANCE

it is no wonder that the American Muslim Alliance chapter in

Massachusetts held

what it called a " successful fundraiser " for First Lady Hillary

Clinton at the

Park Plaza Hotel in Boston on June 13, 2000. AMA Massachusetts Chair

Tahir Ali

said afterwards, " We are attempting to send an important message to

all AMA

chapters: we must support all who have [Muslim] interests at heart,

regardless

of what part of the country they are running in. "

 

EMERSON'S TESTIMONY

According to Steve Emerson, a well-known investigative journalist

specializing

in militant Islamic organizations, the AMA's leaders " have

sanctioned terrorism,

published anti-Semitic statements, and repeatedly hosted conferences

that were

forums for denunciations of Jews and exhortations to wage jihad. "

Faced with

pressure on the matter, Mrs. Clinton announced on Oct. 25th that she

was

returning the $50,000 in campaign contributions raised for her by

the AMA. She

failed to give a credible explanation as to why it took her more

than four

months from June 13th until October 25th until she saw it

necessary to

return the money.

 

Mr. Emerson, in a recent Wall Street Journal article, noted: " As

first lady,

Mrs. Clinton began in 1996 an outreach program to Muslim leaders in

the U.S.

With America's Muslim population at some six million and growing, an

effort to

include the community's leaders in the mainstream of American

politics is

unquestionably a worthy undertaking. But curiously, nearly all of

the leaders

with whom Mrs. Clinton elected to meet came from Islamic

fundamentalist

organizations. A review of the statements, publications and

conferences of the

groups Mrs. Clinton embraced shows unambiguously that they have long

advocated

or justified violence. By meeting with these groups, the first lady

lent them

legitimacy as " mainstream " and " moderate " . "

 

But this should not be unexpected, considering Mrs. Clinton's past

radical

affiliations. During the 1980's, ultra-liberal lawyer Hillary Rodham-

 

Clinton

served on the board of the New World Foundation, which funneled

money to the

Palestine Liberation Organization, at a time when the PLO was

officially

recognized by the United States as a terrorist organization.

 

Similarly, in February 1996, Hillary hosted a reception at the White

House for

leaders of Hamas-supporting groups such as the American Muslim

Council and the

Council on American-Islamic Relations. And in January, 1998, Hillary

hosted

another White House reception honoring Muslim leaders and the Muslim

Public

Affairs Council who defended militant Islamic fundamentalism and

also supported

radical Islamic groups.

 

THE REAL HILLARY

This, then, is the real Hillary Rodham-Clinton. An ambitious woman

willing to

utter any banal cliche on behalf of " Israel's security " to placate

unaware New

York Jewish voters, but one whose pre-Senate race record on Israel

is appalling.

It's a record of supporting the terrorist PLO, even before the 1993

signing of

the first Oslo Agreement on the White House lawn, of ignoring

blatant calumny

heaped on Israel by Suha Arafat, of supporting the creation of a

Palestinian PLO

State, of hosting and legitimizing extremist Islamic groups in the

United

States. Most recently, it included taking campaign contributions

from these very

same evil, anti-Semitic organizations - until being caught with her

hand in the

extremist Islamic cookie jar. This is the very same Hillary Rodham-

Clinton who

now claims to be Israel's friend. "

 

SOURCE: http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/hillarSy.htm

 

You can see actual photos of arafat's uncle,Haj Mohammad Amin al-

Husseini,the grand mufti of Jerusalem, and others :

Kofi and Nasrallah, boss of Hezbollah

AFAFAT'S UNCLE THE MUFTI WITH ISLAMIC NAZIS

ARAFAT'S UNCLE THE MUFTI WITH FELLOW NAZIS

ARAFAT'S UNCLE THE MUFTI WITH MOSLEM SS

The Mufti and Hitler

Himmler with a Moslem SS Division

Joe Dioguardi

Hillary Clinton Kissing Arafat's Wife

at

KnowTheEnemy/

http://ph.KnowTheEnemy/photos

 

Hillary Clinton Kissing Arafat's Wife may also be seen at:

http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/hillarSy.htm

 

arafat's uncle,Haj Mohammad Amin al-Husseini,the grand mufti of

Jerusalem raised

three Moslem nazi SS divisions for Hitler during World War Two. Two

of those

Moslem SS divisions were Bosnian, the third was Albanian. The

Albanian Moslem SS

Division was called the SS Division from which would spring the

notorious

so-called

" KLA " Kosovo Liberation Army, a.k.a. UCK in Albanian.

The children and grandchildren of the Albanian Moslem SS Division

became the so-called " KLA " .

" HILLARY RUSHED TO SUPPORT PALESTINIAN STATE

And Hillary Rodham-Clinton? Well, in May 1998, she told a youth

conference on

Middle East peace in Villars, Switzerland, that she supports the

eventual

creation of an independent Palestinian state. Her spokesperson,

Marsha Berry

told reporters: " " These remarks are her own personal view. " Then, in

November

1999, while on a purported State visit to the Middle East, she

publicly appeared

with Yasser Arafat's wife Suha. With Hillary at her side, Suha

Arafat made the

deliberately false allegation that " Our [Palestinian] people have

been submitted

to the daily and intensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli

forces, which has

led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children. " Mrs.

Arafat also

accused Israel of contaminating much of the water sources used by

Palestinians

with " chemical materials " and poisoning Palestinian women and

children with

toxic gases.

 

Instead of reacting with outrage, Hillary Clinton sat by silently -

and gave her

a hug and a kiss when she finished speaking. Later, many hours after

the event,

and only after a media furor put her on the spot for what many view

as a bit

more than a mere political " faux pas " , Mrs. Clinton called on " all

sides " to

refrain from " inflammatory rhetoric and baseless accusations " -

including

Israel, whose leaders made no such accusations. Glossing over this

remarkably

repugnant affair, Mrs. Clinton has yet to specifically contradict

and denounce

the monstrous lies uttered by Yasser Arafat's wife in her presence. "

SOURCE: http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/hillarSy.htm

 

 

 

the following item is excerpted from:

More Than S-x: The Secrets of Bill and Hillary Clinton Revealed by

Arkansas

State Trooper

NewsMax.com

September 14, 1999

Washington - An Arkansas State Trooper who once guarded Bill Clinton

has

revealed startling new information about Bill and Hillary Rodham

Clinton.

Trooper Larry Patterson, a recently retired 32-year veteran of the

state police,

had been the most senior member of the elite Governor's Security

Detail during

the period Bill Clinton served as Governor. During that time,

Patterson became

privy to Bill and Hillary Clinton's most closely guarded secrets.

Patterson told

his story exclusively to NewsMax.com and Internet Vortex.

NewsMax.com has

published More than S-x: The Secrets of Bill and Hillary Clinton

Revealed — a

two-hour audio cassette tape of Christopher Ruddy's interview with

Trooper Larry

Patterson. In More than S-x Patterson makes bombshell revelations,

some of which

have never been disclosed before:

Organized Crime. The press has ignored reporting of this critical

issue, but

Patterson says Clinton had a close relationship with the head of the

Dixie

Mafia—Arkansas' homegrown organized crime family that has grown in

recent years

through drug trafficking. Patterson said Clinton regularly received

gifts from

the reputed mob boss.

Ethnic Slurs about Jews. Both Hillary and Bill Clinton frequently

used slurs

during heated arguments with each other, Patterson said. Among the

epithets they

frequently hurled at each other were anti-Semitic slurs such

as `mother f---in'

Jew' or `Jew bastard'. Patterson said such references were heard

frequently

during the years he served the Clintons. Patterson said Clinton

loved telling

ethnic jokes and frequently told jokes that were anti-Semitic.

The use of the " N " word. Patterson said Bill Clinton would use the

word " n----r "

— the " N " word — when he was angry with African-American opponents.

He recalls

the use of the word in describing a black, Arkansas activist who

was critical

of Clinton. Patterson said Clinton also used the " N " word during the

1992

campaign

Hitler and Mein Kampf. Bill Clinton, Patterson said, spoke

admiringly of Hitler

and was fascinated by his book Mein Kampf.

source:

http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1999/9/13/220611

 

Jerusalem, November 10, 1999

Fooling the Jews

 

WOMEN IN GREEN, among whose members there are many voters from New

York who

have dual citizenship, will protest against the visit of Hillary

Clinton.

We will be outside the Tel Aviv Museum, Shaul HaMelech Boulevard and

Weizman Street in Tel Aviv, at 19:15 to voice our opposition to

this " new "

and dubious friend of Israel.

Hillary Clinton is one smart lady. She wants to be President.

Therefore,

she will say anything to any particular Group that will lend itself

to

obtaining that set objective. She strategically chose the upcoming

Senatorial race in New York as the first stepping stone towards

reaching

her presidential goal. However, New York has an important Jewish

vote and

that is a hurdle that she must leap over and " handle " .

The difficulty for Hillary is that she has never been a friend of

Israel.

She has publicly come out for a Palestinian State, which as a

sophisticated

and smart lady she knows would threaten Israel's very existence.

She very

well knows that hatred of Jews and Israel even now is an essential

part of

Arafat's educational system; moreover, Arafat's hate propaganda in

his

Media includes praise of the bomb makers who specialize in blowing

up

Israel's buses. Yet she has never leveled one word of criticism

against

Arafat in that or any other regard, or for that matter against any

Arab.

Her Arab guest list at the White House has included American Arab

leaders

who are sympathetic to and support terrorist Hamas. She could find

nothing

about Israel to publicly admire throughout the many years that she

has been

in the White House.

But to garner the Jewish vote in New York she has to appear to tone

down

her bias in favor of the Arabs, and make some Jewish " gestures " .

She now

lets out of the family closet the inconsequential news that her

grandmother's second husband was a Jew. And of course for these New

York

voters, she is making the proscribed visit to Israel. After all

these years

she suddenly awakened to recognize the status of Jerusalem; she

recently

told the Jews that Jerusalem is Israel's eternal capital; however,

she is

not in favor of moving the U.S. Embassy to that capital. In that she

is

consistent with her husband who broke his previous campaign promise

to

move it. Her track record insures that she too will not keep

whatever

promises she makes to the Jews in order to get into the Senate. If

elected, she would be the most pro-Arab Senator New York has ever

had.

Unmasked, Hillary Clinton has proven herself again and again to have

little

sympathy and understanding for Israel and the Jewish People.

Don't be

fooled by the Jewish " appointees " of her husband. Albright, Berger

and the

like are Jews in name only, who lack loyalty to the Jewish People.

Nor

should you be " taken in " by her deceptive sweet talk. Hillary's

visit to

Israel is just part and parcel of her New York campaign.

Ruth and Nadia Matar

 

source: http://www.womeningreen.org/saynov99.htm

 

BLACK LIBERATION ARMY

Aliases: Afro-American Liberation Army

Base of Operation: United States

Founding Philosophy: The Black Liberation Army was a militant

splinter group of

the Black Panther Party. Breaking away from the Black Panthers in

the late

1960s, the stated philosophy of the BLA was to " take up arms for the

liberation

and self-determination of black people in the United States. "

In the 1970s the BLA was responsible for numerous domestic criminal

acts,

including bank and armored car robberies. In one of their more

famous exploits,

members of the BLA freed fellow BLA member Joanne Chesimard from

prison where

she was serving a life sentence for the murder of a state trooper.

Chesimard

fled to Cuba, where she is still living, and the US government has

offered a

reward of $1 million dollars for her capture. Members of the BLA

were also

charged in various terrorist plots including a plan to firebomb

department

stores in New York. In 1981, four members of the BLA were convicted

for various

charges including murder and armed robbery in a failed heist of a

Brinks armored

car, which left one guard and two police officers dead. On March 25,

1984, a man

claiming to be " Lieutenant Spartacus " of the " Black Liberation

Army, " hijacked a

Piedmont airlines jet with 58 passengers on board. The plane flew to

Cuba where

" Lieutenant Spartacus " found asylum.

SOURCE: http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=3708

 

excerpted from:

" Hillary Clinton and " The Third Way " How America's First Lady of the

Left Has

Bamboozled Liberals and Conservatives Alike

By David Horowitz

FrontPageMagazine.com | June 22, 2000

My subject is Hillary Clinton in her role as America's foremost

leftist.....

It is this same idea that is found in the Social Gospel which

impressed the

youthful Hillary Clinton at the United Methodist Church in Park

Ridge, Illinois.

She later encountered the same idea in the New Left at Yale and in

the

Venceremos Brigade in Communist Cuba... " David Horowitz is the author

of numerous

books including an autobiography, Radical Son, which has been

described as " the

first great autobiography of his generation, " and which chronicles

his odyssey

 

Union Leader Charged With Racketeering

October 17, 2006

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

A seven-term assemblyman and labor leader who was credited with

revitalizing the nation's biggest municipal labor council was

arrested on federal racketeering charges today and accused of

stealing more than $2 million in union and public money.

The indictment charges the union leader, Brian McLaughlin, with a

pattern of thefts over the last decade, including siphoning $95,000

from bank accounts for a Little League for the children of union

members; installing a relative to head a commission on the dignity

of immigrants, then collecting the relative's salary; and using

union members to walk his dog, hang his Christmas lights and

renovate his $760,000 home on Long Island.

Michael Garcia, the United States attorney for Manhattan,

characterized the pattern of thefts as " stunning in its breadth and

scope " at a news conference today. " This case lends a new meaning to

the term, `hand in the till,' " Mr. Garcia said. " It is a case about

greed. "

Mr. McLaughlin faces up to 500 years in prison if convicted of 44

counts in the 180-page indictment, including fraud, embezzlement,

money laundering, the use of phantom employees and receiving cash

and other bribes from companies that employed union members.

" His Midas touch turned everything into gold, " said Andrew Arena,

special agent in charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau

of Investigation.

The indictment alleges that Mr. McLaughlin used members of his

electrical union, while they were on the union clock, to perform

personal tasks for him, like installing and removing appliances,

painting, changing light bulbs, hanging picture frames, shoveling

snow, hanging Christmas lights, fixing plumbing, removing garbage,

changing locks and cleaning out a barn.

The thefts were not limited to his position as labor council

president, officials said.

The indictment charges that, as founding member and district leader

of the William Jefferson Clinton Democratic Club of Queens, a

nonprofit club that raised money to support candidates for public

office, Mr. McLaughlin misappropriated more than $19,000 for

personal expenses, like the rent at his Albany home, and to install

a wide-screen plasma television at the home of " a person with whom

he maintained a personal relationship. "

He is also accused of using more than $330,000 from his political

campaign committee to pay for personal expenses, including bills for

his son's wedding, renovating his home in Nissequogue, N.Y., paying

his country club initiation fee and house cleaning.

Noting that the real work of Mr. McLaughlin's union, Division J of

Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, was

to install and maintain street lights and traffic signals in New

York City, Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the city's Department of

Investigation, which also participated in the investigation of the

union leader, suggested that the public might now be able to look at

street lights without cringing.

" You can be assured, " she said, that the people who are supposed to

be installing street lights, are " no longer mucking stalls or

shoveling snow on Mr. McLaughlin's property. "

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/nyregion/17cnd-labor.html?

ei=5090 & en=f9269b42edff987d & ex=1318737600 & partner=rssuserland & emc=rss

& pagewanted=print

 

The following material is excerpted from some remarks by the then

President of the United States of America, Bill Clinton, which

appeared under the headline:

Remarks at a Reception for Hillary Clinton in Flushing, New York

October 23, 2000

source:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2889/is_43_36/ai_68215162/prin

t

" I want to thank Brian McLaughlin for making me feel welcome and

being so kind to Hillary over these years and this last year of hard

campaigning. "

 

" NOTE: The President spoke at 7:15 p.m. in the Electrical Industry

Auditorium at the Union Hall. In his remarks, he referred to former

Representative Thomas J. Manton, chair, and Michael H. Reich,

executive secretary, Queens County Democratic Organization; Mr.

Reich's daughter, Alisa, who sang the national anthem;

Representative Crowley's wife, Kasey; New York City Comptroller Alan

G. Hevesi; State Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin; former President

Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and

Montenegro); Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Prime Minister

John Major of the United Kingdom; and Nava Barak, wife of Prime

Minister Ehud Barak of Israel. "

 

At the height of his power, Marat Balagula was a kingpin in a

Brighton Beach Russian mob who traveled with a Paraguayan passport,

traded in diamonds, bought an island off West Africa, owned a Long

Island mansion decorated in pink marble and had a knack for making

his enemies disappear. Marat Balagula was a member and alleged

leader of an organization of criminals made up of Russian and other

Eastern European immigrants based in Brooklyn , New York .

During the mid-1980's Balagula controlled 100% of the bootleg

gasoline which was distributed in New York City . Controlling

terminals from Brooklyn to Westchester County in New York , his ring

sold gasoline among various companies including bogus firms that

reported having paid the excise taxes and then vanished before the

Internal Revenue Service could follow the complicated and cumbersome

paper trails.

In June 1993, he and seven individuals were indicted in the largest

excise tax evasion scheme in United States history. Balagula along

with Joseph Macchia; Macchia's three sons, Joseph, Jr., Larry, and

George; Victor Batuner; Michael Varzar; and John Barberio were

charged in a conspiracy to evade approximately $85 million dollars

in federal excise taxes.

In the fall of 1994 Balagula and his co-defendants plead guilty and

are currently awaiting sentence.

This was not the first case to be brought against Balagula for

excise tax evasion. In July 1992 Balagula, along with three other

individuals, was convicted on one count of conspiracy to evade

approximately $500,000 in federal excise taxes and one count of

excise tax evasion. For this conviction, Balagula received a 10-year

sentence.

Fuel Tax Evasion Highlights, March 1995

Volume 4, Number 1 March 1995

 

IN THE NEWS

Lawrence Iorizzo, key figure in the NY bootleg gasoline market in

the 1980's who turned government informant and was subsequently

booted out of the witness protection program and is now wanted by

Texas officials, is interviewed. The New Yorker, Talk of the Town,

11/14/94

Marat Balagula pled guilty to conspiring to evade $85 million in

federal gasoline taxes on nearly one billion gallons of fuel sold in

the NY area between 1983-88. The surprise plea came Oct. 18, a month

before he and 7 others were to begin trial. Balagula is already

serving a 10-year sentence for similar bootlegging. On Oct. 27,

Joseph A. Macchia and his sons Lawrence, George and Joseph L. pled

guilty to their role in the scheme. On Nov. 4, John Barberio was the

last to plead guilty. Michael Varzar had pled guilty earlier. An

eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a fugitive. Newsday, 10/24/94,

11/2/94; Dept. of Justice Press Release, 11/4/94

 

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/hl95mar.htm

 

Fuel Tax Evasion Highlights, March 1995

Volume 4, Number 1 March 1995

 

IN THE NEWS

Lawrence Iorizzo, key figure in the NY bootleg gasoline market in

the 1980's who turned government informant and was subsequently

booted out of the witness protection program and is now wanted by

Texas officials, is interviewed. The New Yorker, Talk of the Town,

11/14/94

Marat Balagula pled guilty to conspiring to evade $85 million in

federal gasoline taxes on nearly one billion gallons of fuel sold in

the NY area between 1983-88. The surprise plea came Oct. 18, a month

before he and 7 others were to begin trial. Balagula is already

serving a 10-year sentence for similar bootlegging. On Oct. 27,

Joseph A. Macchia and his sons Lawrence, George and Joseph L. pled

guilty to their role in the scheme. On Nov. 4, John Barberio was the

last to plead guilty. Michael Varzar had pled guilty earlier. An

eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a fugitive. Newsday, 10/24/94,

11/2/94; Dept. of Justice Press Release, 11/4/94

Eugene Slusker pled guilty in U.S. District Court in Columbus , Ohio

to a diesel conspiracy that resulted in a federal tax loss of over

$88,000 and a loss of over $117,000 to Ohio during 6 months in 1990.

Slusker, using the alias Semyan Altman and doing business as

Accurate Tank Testing, Inc., used a false Form 637 to purchase over

587,00 gallons of untaxed diesel fuel which was then sold to

numerous truck stops throughout Ohio, tax included. Co-defendant,

Roman Kalika pleaded not guilty to federal tax evasion charges. The

IRS Criminal Investigation Div. and the Ohio Dept. of Taxation

investigated the case. Justice Dept. Press Release 9/30/94; Dayton

Daily News 10/3/94; Columbus Dispatch, 12/24/94

The worldwide activities of Russian organized crime and its ability

to bilk companies, governments and individuals out of billions of

dollars through sophisticated fraud and theft schemes is described

in two recent articles. Wall Street Journal, 12/22/94; Atlantic

Monthly, 6/94

The Wisconsin Dept. of Justice has charged Patrick S. Gedig and Paul

C. Kramer with misappropriating nearly $1 million in motor fuel

taxes during 1990. At the time, Gedig was president of United

Petroleum, Milwaukee , and Kramer ran Ohio Fuel and Supply, Big

Bend . Wisconsin State Journal, 11/1/94

The work of Charles Hurchalla in helping to expose a massive fuel

tax scam masterminded by the Russian mob and involving the La Cosa

Nostra is described in a recent article. Philadelphia Magazine,

10/94

Court documents filed by federal authorities in NJ name John Gotti

as an unindicted co-conspirator in organized crime efforts to

dominate the bootleg motor fuel industry in the NY metropolitan

area. The disclosure came on the eve of the trial of Anthony (Fat

Tony) Morelli, allegedly a capo in the Gambino crime family, and

Gregory Federico, owner of Capitol Fuel Service of Cranford and Igor

(Little Igor) Roizman, a Russian emigre. To date, 20 persons have

been prosecuted on charges growing out of the Operation Red Daisy

investigation conducted jointly by the FBI, IRS, DOT Office of

Inspector General, NJ Div. of Taxation and PA Dept. of Revenue.

Newark Star Ledger, 12/5 and 12/16/94

 

United States Department of Transportation - Federal Highway

Administration

 

FOR IMMEDIATE

RELEASE TAX

NOVEMBER 4, 1994 (202)

616-2765

TDD (202)

514-1888

 

NEW YORK MAN PLEADS GUILTY IN TAX CASE

 

WASHINGTON , D.C. - A former wholesale gasoline sales

manager

from New Rochelle , New York , pleaded guilty in U. S. District

Court

in Hauppauge , New York , for his role in a conspiracy to evade

more

than $85 million in federal gasoline excise taxes, the Department

of Justice announced today.

John Barberio, 68, the former manager for New York Fuel

Terminal Corp., was the last of seven defendants to plead guilty to

the tax evasion scheme. An eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a

fugitive.

Barberio's plea follows the October 27, 1994, guilty pleas of

former terminal operators Joseph A. Macchia, Lattingtown , N.Y. ,

and

his three sons, Lawrence, George and Joseph L., for their role in

the tax fraud scheme from 1983 through 1988. Joseph A. Macchia and

two of his sons, Lawrence and George, also pleaded guilty to two

counts of excise tax evasion. Michael Varzar pleaded guilty on May

24 of this year for his role in the conspiracy and to two counts of

gasoline excise tax evasion. New York Fuel Terminal Corp. was

registered with the Internal Revenue Service and was

 

 

required to pay a tax on each gallon of gasoline it sold to an

unregistered company. The Macchias, through New York Fuel, sold

almost 1 billion gallons of gasoline to unregistered companies

without paying the tax they owed.

On October 13, Marat Balagula, pleaded guilty to five counts

of the indictment charging him with conspiracy and excise tax

evasion. Balagula, who controlled many of the unregistered

companies to which New York Fuel sold gasoline, is currently

serving a 10-year sentence following his 1992 prosecution by the

Tax Division for his involvement in a separate gasoline excise tax

evasion scheme for which Barberio also was convicted. Barberio was

sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

 

 

Evidence presented at Balagula's 1992 sentencing in the

earlier case implicated him as a member of a Russian organized

crime group headed by Evsei Agron. According to testimony at the

hearing, on the day following Agron's gangland-style murder,

Balagula moved into Agron's office and took over operation of the

organization. The sentencing court ruled that the probation

department properly concluded that Balagula " was a member of an

organization of criminals made up of Russians and other Eastern

European immigrants based in Brooklyn . "

All of the defendants will be sentenced by Judge Leonard D.

Wexler at a later date. Each faces a maximum of five years in

prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.

 

Assistant Attorney General Loretta Argrett of the Tax Division

said, " The Tax Division has a strong commitment to prosecute the

criminal elements who would deprive the nation's treasury of

millions of dollars in tax revenue. This is only another step in

our ongoing efforts to eliminate motor fuels tax fraud and to

prosecute those criminals, organized or otherwise, who would

defraud the United States . "

 

###

 

94-644

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/November94/644a.txt.html

 

 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

THIS SUMMARY ORDER WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED IN THE FEDERAL REPORTER AND

MAY NOT BE CITED AS PRECEDENTIAL AUTHORITY TO THIS OR ANY OTHER

COURT, BUT MAY BE CALLED TO THE ATTENTION OF THIS OR ANY OTHER COURT

IN A SUBSEQUENT STAGE OF THIS CASE, IN A RELATED CASE, OR IN ANY

CASE FOR PURPOSES OF COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL OR RES JUDICATA.

At a stated Term of the United States Court of Appeals for the

Second Circuit, held at the United States Courthouse, Foley Square,

in the City and County of New York, on the 13th day of September,

one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six.

PRESENT: HONORABLE JOSEPH M. McLAUGHLIN,

HONORABLE DENNIS G. JACOBS,

Circuit Judges ,

HONORABLE ROBERT J. KELLEHER, [*]

District Judge .

 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee ,

- v. - No. 96-1018

JOSEPH MACCHIA, SR.; LAWRENCE

MACCHIA; GEORGE MACCHIA; VIKTOR

BATUNER; MICHAEL VARZAR; JOHN

BARBERIO; JOSEPH L. MACCHIA, also

known as Joseph Macchia, also known as Joey,

Defendants ,

MARAT BALAGULA,

Defendant-Appellant .

 

FOR APPELLANT: John L. Pollok, Hoffman & Pollok , New York , NY.

FOR APPELLEE: Robert E. Lindsay, Attorney, Tax Division, Department

of Justice, Washington , DC .

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern

District of New York (Wexler, J. ).

This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of record from the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York

and was argued.

ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, it is hereby ordered, adjudged, and

decreed that the judgment of the district court be and it hereby is

AFFIRMED.

Marat Balagula was a primary player in various conspiracies to evade

federal gasoline excise taxes. Balagula and others purchased or set

up phony " middleman " companies to buy gasoline from one entity and

sell it to another. Under the prevailing tax code -- which assessed

gasoline excise taxes against certain selling companies -- the

middleman company would become liable for an excise tax on the

gasoline sold. Balagula and his cohorts would then cause the phony

company to collapse, leaving the excise tax unpaid. Thus, the

gasoline passed from the original seller to the eventual buyer

without obligating either of those companies to pay the excise

taxes.

The government charged Balagula (under the " Tarricone Indictment " )

with one count of conspiring to evade the federal gasoline excise

tax, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 3623, and two counts of

attempted excise tax evasion, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201 and

18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 3623. This conspiracy existed from late 1985 to

early 1986 in the greater New York metropolitan area (including New

Jersey ), and evaded over $400,000 in taxes. After a jury trial in

the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New

York (Wexler, J. ), he was convicted on all three counts. The court

sentenced Balagula to a total of ten years' imprisonment, which he

is presently serving. We affirmed Balagula's conviction and sentence

on appeal. See United States v. Tarricone , 996 F.2d 1414 (2d Cir.

1993).

The government subsequently charged Balagula (under the " Macchia

Indictment " ) with one count of conspiring to evade the federal

gasoline excise tax, and four counts of attempted excise tax

evasion. This broader conspiracy existed from early 1983 to the

middle of 1988, also in the greater New York metropolitan area.

Through this larger scheme, Balagula and others evaded more than

$85,000,000 in taxes. Balagula moved to dismiss the charges, again

in the Eastern District of New York (Wexler, J. ), arguing that the

conspiracy charged in the Macchia Indictment was, for the purposes

of double jeopardy, the same conspiracy as charged in the Tarricone

Indictment. The district court denied Balagula's motion, see United

States v. Macchia , 845 F. Supp. 953 (E.D.N.Y. 1994), and we

affirmed, see United States v. Macchia , 35 F.3d 662 (2d Cir. 1994).

Balagula then pled guilty to all five counts of the Macchia

Indictment. The district court, using the 1987 version of the

Sentencing Guidelines, [1] set Balagula's base offense level at

eighteen. See U.S.S.G. §§ 2T1.1, 2T4.1. The court increased this by

two levels for sophisticated means, see U.S.S.G. § 2T1.1(b)(2), two

levels for conduct intended to encourage others to impede the

Internal Revenue Service ( " IRS " ), see U.S.S.G. § 2T1.9(b)(2), and

four levels for being an organizer or leader of the criminal

activities, see U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a). The court reduced the offense

level by two for acceptance of responsibility, see U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1,

netting a total offense level of twenty-four.

Finding that Balagula's criminal history category ( " CHC " ) of II did

not adequately reflect the seriousness of his past criminal conduct

or propensity for future crime, the district court departed upward

to CHC IV. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3. The court then sentenced Balagula

to a total of seventy-seven months' imprisonment, a $250,000 fine,

and three years' supervised release. The court ordered this sentence

to run consecutively to Balagula's unexpired ten-year sentence from

his prior conviction. See U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3.

Balagula now appeals, arguing that the district court erred in: (1)

ordering his sentence to run consecutive to, rather than concurrent

with, his ongoing ten-year term; (2) departing upward in his CHC

because of his past criminal conduct and potential for future crime;

(3) enhancing his offense level for encouraging others to impede the

IRS; and (4) imposing so severe a fine. Balagula also asks us to

remand his case to a different judge for resentencing.

We review the district court's findings of fact only for clear

error, and its application of the Guidelines to those facts for

abuse of discretion. See United States v. Santiago , 906 F.2d 867,

871 (2d Cir. 1990).

1. Consecutive Sentences . Balagula first argues that the district

court erroneously ordered his sentence to run consecutive to, rather

than concurrent with, his ongoing ten-year term (from his conviction

on the Tarricone Indictment). We disagree.

Section 5G1.3 provides:

If at the time of sentencing, the defendant is already serving one

or more unexpired sentences, then the sentence for the instant

offense(s) shall run consecutively to such unexpired sentences,

unless one or more of the instant offense(s) arose out of the same

transactions or occurrences as the unexpired sentences. In the

latter case, such instant sentences and the unexpired sentences

shall run concurrently, except to the extent otherwise required by

law.

U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3 (emphasis added). " The same transactions or

occurrences " means the same " discrete acts or events, " and not

simply an " ongoing operation or course of conduct. " United States v.

Vega , 11 F.3d 309, 313-15 (2d Cir. 1993).

Our holding that the conspiracies charged in the Tarricone and

Macchia Indictments were not the " same conspiracies " for double

jeopardy purposes is, of course, not necessarily determinative in a

5G1.3 inquiry. We found in that case, however, that the Tarricone

and Macchia conspiracies were " quite different, " Macchia , 35 F.3d

at 670, involving different actors playing different roles; using

different facilities and companies; and employing a different modus

operandi . We also noted that the two conspiracies, as charged,

contained no common overt acts. Id. at 671. Therefore, the district

court did not err in concluding that the Tarricone and Macchia

offenses did not arise out of the same transactions or occurrences --

that is, the same discrete acts or events -- and did not err in

imposing consecutive sentences. See Vega , 11 F.3d at 315.

Balagula also argues that the Commentary to § 5G1.3, which provides

that " departure would be warranted when independent prosecutions

produce anomalous results that circumvent or defeat the intent of

the guidelines, " see U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3 comment., commands a downward

departure in his case. But the Guidelines' language makes clear that

departure is discretionary, see United States v. Rogers , 897 F.2d

134 (4th Cir. 1990), and a district court's discretionary refusal to

depart downward is not reviewable on appeal, see United States v.

Chabot , 70 F.3d 259, 260 (2d Cir. 1995) (per curiam).

2. Upward Departure . Balagula argues that the district court based

its upward departure on improper grounds, did not give Balagula

proper notice to contest the departure, and did not sufficiently

articulate its reasons for departing. We reject all of these

contentions.

The guidelines clearly provide for an upward departure when the

district court believes that a defendant's CHC " significantly

underrepresents the seriousness of the defendant's criminal history

or the likelihood that the defendant will commit further crimes. "

U.S.S.G § 4A1.3. And, Balagula obviously had notice that such a

departure was possible: he expressly argued against such departure

both in his sentencing letter to the district court, and at the

sentencing hearing.

Although the district court did not explain why a departure to CHC

III (instead of IV) would be insufficient, see United States v.

Deutsch , 987 F.2d 878, 886-88 (2d Cir. 1993), " so long as the

reasons supporting the departure are fully explained, a mechanistic

step-by-step procedure is not required, " United States v. Kassar ,

47 F.3d 562, 566 (2d Cir. 1995). The court's recitation of

Balagula's criminal past, and apparent propensity to commit future

crimes, was a sufficient articulation of the reasons supporting

departure, and satisfies the requirement that the departure be

explained. See id. at 566-67; United States v. Adler , 52 F.3d 20,

22 (2d Cir. 1995) (per curiam).

3. Enhancement for Encouraging Others . Balagula next argues that

the district court improperly increased his offense level by two for

conduct intended to encourage others to impede the IRS. See U.S.S.G.

§ 2T1.9(b)(2). According to Balagula, this encouragement enhancement

does not apply except to tax protest groups and promoters of

fraudulent tax shelters. Balagula is wrong.

It is true that an application note to the 1994 version of § 2T1.9

lists tax protest groups and fraudulent tax shelters as examples of

situations deserving application of the encouragement enhancement.

But, as " examples, " these listed schemes are clearly meant to be

illustrative, not exclusive. See United States v. Rosario , 7 F.3d

319, 320-21 (2d Cir. 1993) (per curiam). Here, the undisputed facts

show that Balagula intended to encourage others to prepare false

invoices such that Balagula and his co-conspirators could evade

millions of dollars in gasoline excise taxes. Indeed, when asked at

his plea hearing whether he had encouraged others to prepare false

documents to facilitate his tax evasion, Balagula stated that he

had. The district court did not clearly err in concluding that

Balagula encouraged others to impede the IRS, nor abuse its

discretion in imposing the two-level encouragement enhancement on

these facts.

4. Fine . Finally, Balagula argues that the district court's

imposition of a $250,000 fine constituted " a sua sponte upward

departure " from the Guidelines. Again, Balagula is wrong.

The imposition of a $250,000 fine was not a departure from the

Guidelines at all; rather, it was expressly provided for in U.S.S.G.

§ 5E4.2. That section provides for a maximum fine which is the

greater of the maximum set forth in the fine table ($100,000), or

twice the estimated loss caused by the defendant, or three times the

estimated gain to the defendant. See U.S.S.G. 5E4.2©(2). Section

5E4.2(b) sets an absolute maximum fines for felonies at $250,000.

See U.S.S.G. § 5E4.2(b). Balagula pled guilty to criminal activity

resulting in an $85,000,000 loss to the IRS. Thus, the maximum fine

could be as much as $170,000,000, but not more than $250,000. A

$250,000 fine was therefore proper.

Because we affirm Balagula's sentence, we need not reach his request

that this case be remanded to a different judge for resentencing. We

have considered all of the additional arguments raised by Balagula,

and find them to be without merit.

Accordingly, the decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.

 

FOOTNOTES

 

* The Honorable Robert J. Kelleher, of the United States District

Court for the Central District of California, sitting by

designation.

1 Unless otherwise indicated, all citations to the Sentencing

Guidelines are to the 1987 version under which Balagula was

sentenced.

Tax Fraud

Evsei Agron

Marat Balagula

John Barberio

Viktor Batuner

Joseph L. Macchia

George Macchia

Lawrence Macchia

Joseph A. Macchia

New York Fuel Terminal Corporation

Michael Varzar

 

Action November 4, 1994

Location: New Rochelle, NY

 

On November 4, 1994, John Barberio, a former wholesale gasoline

sales manager from New Rochelle , New York , pled guilty in federal

court in Hauppauge , New York , for his role in a conspiracy to

evade more than $85 million in federal gasoline excise taxes.

Barberio was the former manager for New York Fuel Terminal

Corporation. He was the last of seven defendants to plead guilty to

the tax evasion scheme. An eighth defendant, Viktor Batuner, is a

fugitive. Barberio's plea follows the October 27, 1994, guilty pleas

of former terminal operators Joseph A. Macchia, Lattingtown , N.Y. ,

and his three sons, Lawrence, George and Joseph L., for their role

in the tax fraud scheme from 1983 through 1988. Joseph A. Macchia

and two of his sons, Lawrence and George, also pleaded guilty to two

counts of excise tax evasion. Michael Varzar pleaded guilty on May

24, 1994, for his role in the conspiracy and to two counts of

gasoline excise tax evasion. New York Fuel Terminal Corp. was

registered with the Internal Revenue Service and was required to pay

a tax on each gallon of gasoline it sold to an unregistered company.

The Macchias, through New York Fuel, sold almost 1 billion gallons

of gasoline to unregistered companies without paying the tax they

owed. On October 13, 1994, Marat Balagula, pleaded guilty to five

counts of the indictment charging him with conspiracy and excise tax

evasion. Balagula, who controlled many of the unregistered companies

to which New York Fuel sold gasoline, is currently serving a 10-year

sentence following his 1992 prosecution by the Tax Division for his

involvement in a separate gasoline excise tax evasion scheme for

which Barberio also was convicted. Barberio was sentenced to three

years' imprisonment. Evidence presented at Balagula's 1992

sentencing in the earlier case implicated him as a member of a

Russian organized crime group headed by Evsei Agron. According to

testimony at the hearing, on the day following Agron's gangland-

style murder, Balagula moved into Agron's office and took over

operation of the organization. The sentencing court ruled that the

probation department properly concluded that Balagula " was a member

of an organization of criminals made up of Russians and other

Eastern European immigrants based in Brooklyn . "

http://frauddigest.com/fraud.php?ident=1850

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE

RELEASE TAX

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1994 (202)

616-2765

TDD (202)

514-1888

 

DEFENDANTS PLEAD GUILTY IN GASOLINE EXCISE TAX CASE

 

Washington , D.C. -- The Department of Justice announced

today that four more defendants in the largest gasoline excise

tax prosecution to date have pleaded guilty. Joseph A. Macchia,

of Lattingtown , N.Y. , and two of his sons, Lawrence Macchia and

George Macchia, admitted conspiring to evade approximately $85

million in federal gasoline excise taxes. They each also pleaded

guilty to two counts of excise tax evasion. A third son, Joseph

L. Macchia, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, the only charge against

him. The four entered their guilty pleas in United States

District Court at Hauppauge , New York in front of the Honorable

Leonard D. Wexler. Each faces a maximum of five years in prison

and a $250,000 fine for each count to which he pleaded guilty.

The Macchias owned and operated a series of wholesale

gasoline companies, including a trucking company and many holding

and management companies, which owned and managed a large number

of gasoline stations, most of which carried the " Citgo " brand.

Their central company was New York Fuel terminal Corporation,

which operated a gasoline storage facility in Brooklyn known as

the " M & Q " Terminal. " M & Q " was short for Manhattan & Queens -

the Macchias also operated Manhattan & Queens Fuel and M & Q

Trucking Corp.

New York Fuel was registered with the IRS and was required

to pay a tax on each gallon of gasoline it sold to an

unregistered company. The Macchias, through New York Fuel, sold

almost one billion gallons of gasoline to unregistered companies

without paying the tax they owed. Many of the unregistered

companies were controlled by the co-defendant Marat Balagula, who

pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him on October 13,

1994.

Most of these illicit sales were purportedly made by " book

transfers " within the M & Q terminal. Book transfers occur when

the title to gasoline within the storage tank passes from one

company to another, but the product itself does not move. The

conspirators created fictitious book transfer records indicate

that the gasoline sold by New York Fuel passed through the

accounts of sever other licensed and unlicensed companies before

being received by the actual purchaser, when in fact, the only

transfer was from New York Fuel to the actual unlicensed

purchaser.

Assistant Attorney General Loretta C. Argrett hailed the

pleas, saying that " the successful prosecution of this complex

case proves our determination to combat excise tax evasion. "

The case was prosecuted by attorneys of the Tax Division of

the Department of Justice and was investigated by the Criminal

Investigation and Examination Divisions of the Internal Revenue

Service and the New York State Tax Department.

###

 

94-619

 

 

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/October94/619.txt.html

FOR IMMEDIATE

RELEASE TAX

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1994 (202)

616-2771

TDD (202)

514-1888

 

FOUR MEN WITH TIES TO WELL KNOWN NEW YORK ORGANIZED CRIME

FAMILIES WERE SENTENCED IN EXCISE TAX FRAUD CASE

 

 

WASHINGTON , D.C. -- Four men with ties to well known New

York organized crime families were sentenced today for their

involvement in a $34 million gasoline excise tax evasion scheme.

Judge Leonard D. Wexler of Hauppauge , New York , sentenced Michael

Varzar, Paul Sharp, Frederick " Buddy " Adrion, and Joseph " Chubby "

Audino to the following:

Michael Varzar--52 months imprisonment, $15,000 fine, three

years supervised release and $250 special assessment.

 

Paul Sharp--35 months imprisonment, three years supervised

release and $150 special assessment.

 

Frederick Adrion, a Luchese crime family associate--34

months imprisonment, 3 years supervised release and $100

special assessment.

 

Joseph Audino, soldier in the Colombo crime family--32

months imprisonment, 3 years supervised release and $100

special assessment.

 

Previously, Vyacheslav Dobrer, a/k/a " Sol Dobrer, " was

sentenced to 37 months imprisonment, Frank Sciortino, a/k/a

" Frankie the Bug, " was sentenced to 60 months imprisonment and

Victor M. Orena, a/k/a " Vic Jr., " a/k/a " The Little Guy, " was

sentenced to 51 months imprisonment for their involvement in the

same conspiracy.

Three additional defendants are fugitives and known to be

hiding in Israel . One of those defendants, Joseph Reisch, a/k/a

" Yosi Reisch, " is awaiting trial in Israel for the May 1989

murder of Michael Markowitz, a former colleague of Reisch's in

the gasoline bootleg industry.

The defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion

charges before Judge Wexler several weeks before the trial was

scheduled to proceed in June 1994.

Sharp, also pleaded guilty to a RICO conspiracy count

concerning a motor fuel excise tax scheme in the Northern

District of Georgia. Varzar, pleaded guilty for his involvement

in an $85 million excise tax conspiracy relative to gasoline

distributed by New York Fuel Terminal Corporation, which operated

a gasoline storage facility in Brooklyn , New York , known as the

" M & Q " Terminal.

The charges stem from an elaborate scheme, referred to as a

" daisy chain, " in which gasoline is purportedly sold between a

number of wholesale distributors before reaching the retail

level. These sales, in fact, never occur and are mere paper

transactions designed to disguise the identity of the company

responsible for remitting the taxes. These schemes allowed the

defendants to pocket a substantial portion of the excise tax

included in the price paid by motorists at the retail pump.

In an effort to infiltrate the bootleg gasoline industry, a

government undercover business called Rossi Associates was

established to compete directly with the defendants' bootleg

operation. Rossi Associates, which was run in a joint effort by

the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of

Investigation, successfully attracted the attention of the

defendants and resulted in their bringing Rossi Associates into

the daisy chain schemes.

On November 24, 1992, at the conclusion of the undercover

operation, federal agents seized assets of the defendants,

including approximately $1.7 million in cash from various safe

deposit boxes, nearly $1.2 million in bank accounts and $1

million in gasoline stored at various terminals and barges.

Also, Varzar's yacht valued at about $500,000 was seized.

As part of the scheme, the Colombo, Gambino, Luchese and

Genovese crime families collected what was termed a " tribute "

payment of at least a one and one-half cents per gallon from the

proceeds of these transactions. Payments were made to a number

of organized crime representatives, including defendants Frank

Sciortino, a/k/a " Frankie the Bug, " and Audino, both of whom were

soldiers in the Colombo crime family, as well as Frank Campione,

a/k/a " Frankie Camp, " a Colombo associate and Adrion, a Luchese

associate. These payments were delivered to, among others,

defendant Victor M. Orena, a/k/a " Vic Jr., " a/k/a " The Little

Guy, " a Colombo captain.

Assistant Attorney General Loretta C. Argrett of the Tax

Division, hailed the sentences saying that " The successful

prosecution of this complex case proves our determination to

combat excise tax evasion. "

This case, which is part of a nationwide motor fuel excise

tax enforcement effort, was investigated jointly by the Long

Island Motor Fuel Task Force and the Office of Zachary W. Carter,

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The task

force includes attorneys from the Department of Justice Tax

Division and agents from the Criminal Investigation and

Examination Divisions of the Internal Revenue Service, the

Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of

Transportation and the New York State Department of Taxation and

Finance.

The case was prosecuted by Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section

of the U.S. Attorney's Office Edward A. Rial and Paulette Wunsch,

Special Attorney, Tax Division, Department of Justice.

###

94-723

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/December94/723.txt.html

 

WASHINGTON—Organized labor is enormously influential in the

Democratic primary, as the campaigns of 2008 presidential candidates

seek endorsements from the major labor federations and member unions.

In the next week three labor (LIUNA, SEIU, Change to WIn)

presidential forums—two in Chicago—will feature presidential

candidates. There's a lot of schedule jockeying on Monday. Before

heading to Washington, Obama has an economics speech in New York

City in the morning and Clinton delivers her plan to deliver

universal health care coverage in Iowa.

 

*On Monday and Tuesday, LIUNA-the Laborers' International Union of

North America hosts a Leadership Conference at the Chicago Sheraton

Hotel and Towers. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Joe Biden speak

on Monday. Bill Richardson on Tuesday. Barack Obama is not scheduled

to attend "

above from

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/09/sweet_blog_special_dem_presid

e.html

 

In the Matter of Alan D. Wasserman

 

Laborers' International Union of North America

Independent Hearing Officer

Docket No. 97-57D

Decided October 7, 1998

Order and Memorandum

This Order and Memorandum supercedes the Order and Memorandum of

August 28, 1998 ( " August 28 Order " ). This Order and Memorandum

addresses objections to the August 28 Order filed by Attorney Arnold

J. Gold on behalf of the Respondent. The procedural history of this

matter is discussed below in detail.

This matter comes before the Laborers' International Union of North

America ( " LIUNA " ) Independent Hearing Officer ( " IHO " ) pursuant to

the LIUNA Constitution and Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure

( " EDP " ).

On December 29, 1997, the LIUNA General Executive Board Attorney

( " GEB Attorney " ) filed Disciplinary Charges against Alan D.

Wasserman ( " Wasserman " ), alleging violations of federal law and the

EDP. Specifically, Wasserman is charged with knowingly associating

with a La Cosa Nostra ( " LCN " ) organized crime family, racketeering,

demanding labor payoffs from contractors, offering to allow

employers to pay LIUNA members less than union-scale wages and

benefits, and obstructing the GEB Attorney and the Inspector General

( " IG " ).

A hearing was held in Newark, New Jersey on May 27, 1998. Wasserman

did not appear at the hearing, but was represented by counsel,

Arnold Jay Gold ( " Gold " ). At the hearing, Attorney Gold stated that

his client was depressed and unable to assist him in his defense.

In support, Gold presented a letter of a medical doctor who stated

that Wasserman suffered from a " Major Depressive Disorder, "

resulting in anger and depression. IHO Exhibit 1. The letter gave

no opinion that such a disorder rendered him unable to assist in his

defense but merely indicated that Wasserman's ability to testify was

impaired. Id. No evidence was offered to show Wasserman could not

aid in his defense. I decided to proceed with the hearing but told

Gold that if he desired an additional session to present new

evidence based on the cooperation of his client, he should inform me

and a hearing would be arranged.

At the conclusion of the hearing, I instructed both parties to

inform me by June 15, 1998, whether they wished the record to remain

open pending the submission of additional evidence. The parties

were also instructed to submit post-hearing briefs three weeks

following June 15, 1998. I stated " You have until June 15th to let

me know what other plans you have, whether to close or keep the

record open. " Hearing Transcript of May 27, 1998 ( " Tr. " ) 220.

On June 12, 1998, the GEB Attorney requested that the matter remain

open until July 13, 1998. The request was granted. On July 13,

1998, the GEB Attorney filed a motion to admit testimony regarding a

confidential witness. On July 14, 1998, the GEB Attorney filed the

original and one copy of all exhibits presented at the May 27, 1998

hearing. Wasserman filed no response to the motion to admit the

confidential witness testimony.

From the date of the hearing on May 27, 1998, Wasserman made no

communication with my office. Attorney Gold made no effort to

contact my office regarding his client's mental status or his

intention to offer any additional evidence. I filed the August 28

Order which dealt with the merits of the case. On September 2,

1998, Attorney Gold by letter to my office complained of not having

had an opportunity to present a defense or file a post-hearing

brief. Gold's letter was Wasserman's first contact with my office

in over three months. I issued an Order placing the August 28 Order

in suspense and treating the August 28 Order as a proposed Order.

See IHO Order September 4, 1998. I permitted both parties to file

written objections and conclusions to the proposed order with

arguments to support their conclusions. I clearly stated that

objections and arguments were to be filed by September 28, 1998.

Despite the September 4, 1998 Order, Attorney Gold sent my office a

letter indicating he wished to discuss a timetable for the

completion of evidence after October 1, 1998, including the

possibility of having his client testify. I denied Gold's request

to hold the record open until after October 1, 1998, but gave

Attorney Gold until October 2, 1998, to file objections to the

August 28 Order. I also requested Attorney Gold to include an

affidavit outlining the proposed testimony of Wasserman. Gold filed

timely objections. In his objections, Gold asserted that Wasserman

was able to appear and testify; however, he did not submit any

proposed testimony by Wasserman as requested. I find that there is

no credible evidence that Wasserman ever intended to appear.

Qualification Of Expert Witnesses

The GEB Attorney called Jack Elko ( " Elko " ) and Jeffrey Schaffler

( " Schaffler " ) as expert witnesses.

Jack Elko

Elko was a police officer for 25 years. Tr. 104. During the last

14 of those years, Elko specialized in organized crime

investigations for the Division of Criminal Justice of the Office of

the Attorney General of New Jersey. Id. Prior to his employment

with the Division of Criminal Justice, Elko was employed as an

investigator with Morris County in Morristown, New Jersey. He

attended numerous service schools, including the New Jersey State

Police Academy, courses offered by the Division of Criminal Justice,

Seton Hall Law School and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

( " FBI " ) on organized crime and the illegal activity usually

perpetrated by organized crime. Tr. 105. Elko testified in this

proceeding as an expert in the make-up and structure of organized

crime, specifically in the Newark area. This technique has been

accepted in similar union disciplinary matters. See e.g., United

States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico) 745 F. Supp. 908, 914-15 (S.D.N.Y.

1990), aff'd United States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico), 941 F.2d 1292

(2d Cir. 1991).

Elko used tested and accepted investigative techniques to verify the

credibility of the individuals whose information he related at the

hearing. Elko testified as to information and hearsay statements of

five named witnesses. Tr. 109-158. In similar circumstances, the

court in United States v. IBT (Cimino), 964 F.2d 1308 (2d Cir.

1992), at 1312; aff'g 777 F. Supp. 1130 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), gave

evidentiary weight to hearsay declarations of three LCN members that

were related by an FBI agent. The court used a number of factors to

evaluate the reliability of the statements. The court noted that

the statements corroborated each other in crucial respects, the

reports painted a consistent picture of the relationship of the

individuals and the statements matched the FBI agent's declaration

in the subject matter. Id. The court held that these declarations

constituted relevant evidence that a reasonable mind might accept on

the subject of association with organized crime. Id.

I find that Elko is a qualified witness, expert in organized crime

matters, and his testimony, in conformance with accepted

investigative techniques, is reliable.

Elko related information given to him by five named individuals

described below, three of whom have cooperated with federal

authorities and two of whom are law enforcement officers.

Rocco Cagno

Rocco Cagno ( " Cagno " ) is a made member of the Colombo organized

crime family and a former member of LIUNA Local Union 342 ( " Local

342 " ). Tr. 109. Cagno became a made member in 1987; thereafter, he

was incarcerated. The record does not reflect the reason for his

incarceration.

He was released from prison in 1990 and his movements were monitored

by an electronic bracelet. As a condition of his release, Cagno was

required to gain employment. He became employed by Local 342

through the influence of Colombo family members and Anthony Proto,

who was then the Business Manager of Local 342. Tr. 114. Cagno is

currently in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Elko had the

opportunity to speak with Cagno in October 1997 concerning the

various organized crime affiliations within Local 342. Tr. 109.

Thomas Ricciardi and Anthony Tumac Accetturo

Thomas Ricciardi ( " Ricciardi " ) and Anthony Accetturo ( " Accetturo " )

are both made members of the Lucchese organized crime family and are

also in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Tr. 117. Accetturo

had been the acting boss of the New Jersey faction of the Lucchese

family. Id.

Steve Montgomery and Lt. Dennis Masucci

Elko also based his opinion on information supplied to him by two

law enforcement officers, Lieutenant Dennis Masucci ( " Masucci " ) and

Steve Montgomery ( " Montgomery " ). Masucci is a law enforcement

officer from the Essex County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey. Tr.

126-27. The information provided by Masucci is based upon

confidential informant sources proven reliable in the past, who gave

Masucci information which resulted in the arrest of organized crime

members, including Gambino organized crime family members in Essex

County. Tr. 128. Montgomery is an FBI Special Agent in Newark, New

Jersey and had been assigned to the Gambino family organized crime

unit. Tr. 127. Montgomery's information is also based on his

personal investigation and confidential sources.

The testimony of Cagno, Ricciardi and Accetturo are corroborated by

each other and by the information supplied by Masucci and

Montgomery.

Jeffrey Schaffler

Schaffler was a federal agent for approximately 30 years. Tr. 160.

He spent his last years as a special agent with the Office of Labor

Racketeering, United States Department of Labor ( " DOL " ). Id.

Schaffer has been a supervisory special agent for DOL, and

thereafter, an assistant special agent in charge of a DOL

investigation office. Id. Schaffler is currently under contract to

the Office of the Inspector General of the Port Authority of New

York and New Jersey. His duties involve investigation of

contractors who do business with the Port Authority, the operation

of construction projects, the manner in which construction bids are

made, contract fraud and wage and hour issues. Tr. 159-60.

Schaffler testified in this proceeding in the capacity of an expert

in the labor field.

I find that Schaffler is a qualified expert witness in the labor

field.

Findings of Fact

Structure of Organized Crime

1. The LCN is a tightly structured

criminal organization which operates in various cities throughout

the United States. It is in the business of crime for a profit.[1]

2. The LCN is comprised of groups of individuals organized

into entities called families. Tr. 105.

3. A typical LCN family structure consists of the head

(the " boss " ), his assistant (the " underboss " ), and an advisor

(the " consigliere " ). The boss, underboss, and consigliere oversee

the activities of LCN members and their associates. LCN members

within a family operate in small groups called " crews " which are

headed by men called " capos " or " crew bosses. " Tr. 106.

4. A " made member " is an individual within an LCN family who

has undergone an initiation process and sworn allegiance to that

family putting the family above everything else. Tr. 106. See also

United States v. Tortona, 922 F.2d 880, 885 (1st Cir. 1990).

5. An " associate " is an individual who works under a capo and

assists made members, but who has not been formally initiated into

the family. Tr. 106. An associate may either earn his living by

performing illegal acts on behalf of an LCN family or he may have an

ostensibly legitimate job while at the same time assisting a

particular LCN family in the acquisition of profits and monies. Tr.

129-30.

6. Both members and associates engage in activities which

bring money to an organized crime family. Tr. 106. Traditionally,

an associate could only become a made member by participating in the

murder of an individual. In more recent times, an associate may

become a made member based upon the benefits he is able to produce

for that family, such as earning large sums of money or exercising

influence in business or politics. Tr. 106-07.

7. A number of LCN families are located in the New York/New

Jersey area, including the Gambino, Lucchese, and Colombo families.

The LCN's History Of Control Over Local 342

8. The evidence presented during the hearing establishes by a

preponderance of the evidence that Local 342 in Newark, New Jersey

has been subject to LCN control for many years.

9. From at least the 1970's, the Gambino and Colombo

organized crime families have shared control of Local 342. Tr.

110. The two families shared illegal profits from contractors

within their jurisdiction by soliciting money for labor peace and

outright extortion. Tr. 110, 114, 131. Members and associates of

both families were placed on the labor payroll with various

contractors through Local 342. Tr. 110, 114. The relationship

between the two families later shifted to an arrangement where the

Colombo family received preferential treatment for placement of

workers at particular contract sites, but no longer shared in

racketeering labor profits. Tr. 111-12.

10. The New Jersey Organized Crime Task Force ( " Task Force " ) was

created by the State of New Jersey in 1986. Tr. 132. From that

time to the present, the Task Force and other law enforcement

entities have documented the Gambino family infiltration of Local

342. Id.

11. Paul Castellano ( " Castellano " ) was the boss of the Gambino

family in New York. After Castellano's murder in December 1985, he

was succeeded by John Gotti ( " Gotti " ) in January 1986. Id.

12. Michael Mandaglia ( " Mandaglia " ) had been the Business

Manager of Local 342 for several years prior to the Task Force's

creation in 1986. Id. According to Elko, court authorized

electronic surveillance revealed that Mandaglia had given Castellano

$5,000 a year from the New Jersey faction of the Gambino family.

Id. Mandaglia gave Robert Bisaccia ( " Bisaccia " ), the former Vice

President of Local 342, $2,000 a year. Id. Bisaccia was a Gambino

family member later incarcerated for racketeering. Tr. 138.

13. In 1986, Mandaglia retired from Local 342 and was succeeded

as Business Manager by Anthony Proto ( " Proto " ). Tr. 133. Proto was

a made member of the Gambino family. Tr. 117, 133.

14. In August 1991, Alfred " Al " Andrade ( " Andrade " ) assaulted a

coffee truck vendor in downtown Newark, New Jersey. Tr. 133-34.

The assault was a result of the vendor's failure to pay Andrade $500

a month for permission to park the vendor's vehicle on a particular

street corner in Newark. Tr. 134. The vendor's vehicle was smashed

with a sledgehammer. Id. The police responded and, after a period

of time, Andrade was arrested. Id. Months later, with the victim's

approval, the charges were downgraded to simple assault, not

pursued, and the vendor immediately left New Jersey and moved to

South Carolina. Id.

15. At the time of the assault, Andrade was a shop steward of

Local 342. Tr. 134. Cagno was present at the scene. Cagno stated

that Andrade's accomplice for the assault was Wasserman, who at the

time was an employee of Local 342. Id.

16. In 1987, the Task Force launched an investigation into

organized crime influence in New Jersey. The investigation employed

court authorized electronic surveillance and other investigative

techniques. The investigation resulted in the indictment of

numerous Gambino family members for labor racketeering in New

Jersey, one of whom was Proto, the former Business Manager for Local

342. Tr. 133. Proto was convicted and incarcerated for labor

racketeering in 1993. Tr. 110. Proto was later permanently

expelled from LIUNA in a separate disciplinary action. See In the

Matter of Anthony Proto, IHO Order and Memorandum, 97-09D (March 26,

1998).

17. After Proto's incarceration in 1993, he unofficially

appointed his son, James Proto, as the Business Manager of Local

342. Tr. 133. Andrade became a Business Agent of Local 342 at that

time, assisting James Proto with his duties. Tr. 134.

18. While Andrade was Business Agent and James Proto was

Business Manager, Wasserman was appointed as a shop steward for

Local 342. Tr. 147.

19. James Vallaro ( " Vallaro " ) was an associate of the Gambino

family in Staten Island, New York. Vallaro's father was a made

member of the Gambino family and a high volume bookmaker. Tr. 135.

Following the 1993 convictions of other Gambino family members,

Vallaro moved to New Jersey and became a member of Local 342. Id.

20. At the time of his move, Vallaro was unknown to law

enforcement in New Jersey. Tr. 136. Elko became aware of Vallaro's

presence and involvement in the LCN through electronic surveillance

which he supervised for the Organized Crime Bureau. Tr. 135. The

information about Vallero which Elko obtained from the surveillance

was verified by Cagno. Tr. 136.

21. Vincent " Juicy " DiModica ( " Juicy DiModica " ) was a member of

Local 342. Juicy DiModica was also made member of the Gambino

family and responsible for the New Jersey area, including all the

Gambino family members and associates within Local 342. Tr. 109,

113.

22. As a result of the 1993 incarcerations of Proto and Robert

Bisaccia, former Vice President of Local 342, Juicy DiModica was

elevated to acting capo of the Gambino family. Tr. 115-116. Elko

testified that he learned this fact from intelligence sources,

discussions with Cagno and interviews with other organized crime

members, including Ricciardi and Accetturo. Tr. 117-19.

23. After Proto's incarceration, Cagno became concerned about

the distribution of money and work for the Colombo family members

within Local 342. Tr. 116. Cagno related his concerns to members

of the New York City Colombo family. Id. Cagno was approached

within the next week by Andrade at a Local 342 membership meeting.

Id. Andrade requested that Cagno attend a meeting with Juicy

DiModica at the Kenilworth Inn on the Garden State Parkway. Id.

24. Cagno and Juicy DiModica, as representatives of their

respective families, attended certain meetings at the Kenilworth

Inn. Tr. 114-15. At the meetings, Juicy DiModica told Cagno that

his son James DiModica, Wasserman, and Andrade were acting on behalf

of Juicy DiModica and the Gambino family. Tr. 114.

25. Vallaro assisted Juicy DiModica in the day-to-day operations

of Local 342 for the Gambino family. Tr. 135. The now public

electronic surveillance revealed that Vallaro met on a daily basis

with Andrade to discuss labor issues within Local 342. Tr. 138.

During a 30-day period, 30 telephone calls were intercepted, both

incoming and outgoing, from Vallaro's and Andrade's homes regarding

labor issues and Local 342. Id.

26. Conversations over prison telephones of Proto, Casarro, and

Bisaccia were intercepted and monitored. Id.

27. In April 1994, a conversation was intercepted between Joseph

Vallaro and Cassarro who was in state prison. Tr. 140. Joseph

Vallaro told Cassarro that he and Juicy DiModica had met with the

consigliere of the Gambino family in New York. Id. Joseph Vallaro

told Cassarro that James Proto, the Business Manager of Local 342,

was not making any money for them and that they would be broke in

two months. Elko testified that he understood this conversation to

mean that James Proto was not being forceful enough in extracting

money from contractors for Local 342. Id.

28. Elko testified that after the Vallaro/Cassarro telephone

conversation, James Proto remained Business Manager of Local 342 for

approximately one year. Id. James Proto was replaced by

Wasserman. Id.

VHR Construction

Charge I:

In or around December 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, while a member and

representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed " barred conduct " in

violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure by

committing an act of racketeering, in that Wasserman did request and

demand money or a thing of value from VHR Construction, an employer

engaged in an industry affecting interstate commerce, when Wasserman

asked for a payoff in form of a " Christmas gift " while being a Union

member and representative (29 U.S.C. §186(b)(1)).

Charge II:

From 1994 to 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, demanded labor payoffs from an

employer while being a Union member and representative, in violation

of the " Business and Financial Activities of Union Officials "

Chapter, Introductory Paragraph, Section 2 and Section 4, of the

LIUNA Ethical Practices Code.

29. In 1995, the LIUNA IG's Office in Washington received

information from New Jersey Regional Vice President, Ray Pocino,

that a contractor who desired confidentiality had alleged that

Wasserman had demanded $25,000 from a contractor in New Jersey,

possibly at the Newark International Airport, and had caused the

contractor's equipment to be damaged. The contractor stated

specifically that one piece of equipment was filled with concrete

and another piece was pushed off a floor of a building. Tr. 20.

Although this statement is pure hearsay, the specificity of the

description of the damage is corroborated later in interviews with a

company official.

30. The IG sent investigators to Newark to verify the

allegations. Id.

31. VHR Construction was a general contractor at the Newark

Airport and signatory to a collective bargaining agreement with

Local 342. Tr. 21, 23.

32. Victor Wortman ( " Wortman " ) is the president and owner of VHR

Construction. Tr. 21.

33. In March 1996, IG Inspectors met with Wortman at his office

in Englewood, New Jersey. Tr. 21-23. Wortman told the IG

Inspectors his company was not the victim of the equipment damage,

but he had heard about the incident. Tr. 22.

34. Wortman said he knew Wasserman was working as the shop

steward at Wortman's job site at the Newark Airport. Tr. 22-24.

35. Wortman said that he and his staff had threatened to dock

Wasserman's pay because Wasserman frequently left the job site for

two or three hours at a time. Tr. 24. As a result, Wasserman came

to Wortman's office to discuss the issue during the weeks before

Christmas of 1995. Id.

36. Wasserman was accompanied to the meeting by James DiModica

who was also a member but not an officer or even a steward of Local

342. Tr. 28-29.

37. During Wortman and Wasserman's conversation about

Wasserman's hours, James DiModica suddenly asked Wortman for a

Christmas gift. Tr. 29. Wortman refused. Tr. 37. Wasserman made

no attempt to dissuade James DiModica from his request. Attorney

Gold contends the record is silent as to Wasserman's participation

in the request. Under the circumstances, I find that Wasserman

brought James DiModica to the meeting to make the request and fully

approved of the demand.

38. At the hearing in the instant matter, Schaffler testified

that, in his expert opinion of the construction industry, labor

payoffs are usually made at Christmastime or at the beginning of the

summer or late spring. Tr. 167.

39. It was also Schaffler's expert opinion, based on his

experience, James DiModica's request for a Christmas gift was the

solicitation of a bribe. Tr. 165. I find that under the

circumstances all parties understood that the meaning of the request

was not for a nominal or token gift. Attorney Gold objects to the

hearsay testimony of Wortman. In the Discussion, infra, I concluded

that Wortman's testimony was corroborated by other testimony, and is

reliable.

40. Attorney Gold argues that Wasserman visited Wortman to

discuss the matter of his pay being docked for continually leaving

the job. Gold argues that Wortman is obviously biased against

Wasserman because of Wasserman's legitimate demand for his pay. The

argument has little weight since Wasserman and Wortman entered into

an agreement settling the matter.

 

 

B.J. McGlone & Co. Inc.

Charge III:

From 1994 to 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, while a member and

representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed " barred conduct " in

violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure by

committing an act of racketeering, in that Wasserman did request and

demand money or a thing of value from B.J. McGlone & Co., Inc., an

employer engaged in an industry affecting interstate commerce, when

he demanded labor payoffs from an employer while being a Union

member and representative (29 U.S.C. §186(b)(1)).

Charge IV:

From 1994 to 1995, Alan D. Wasserman, demanded labor payoffs from an

employer and offered to allow that employer to use non-Union labor

or to pay LIUNA members less than Union-scale wages and benefits,

and in so doing violated his obligation as a member of the Union to

refrain from interfering with the proper conduct of Union business,

in violation of Article III, Section 3(d) of LIUNA's Uniform Local

Union Constitution and the " Business and Financial Activities of

Union Officials " Chapter, Introductory Paragraph, Section 2 and

Section 4, of the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code

41. B.J. McGlone ( " McGlone " ) is a company located in New Jersey

which provides fireproof material and services. Tr. 47. McGlone

performed and worked at the Newark Airport job site in 1994.

42. In August 1997, IG Inspectors spoke with an officer at

McGlone who was involved in managing one of the job sites at the

Newark Airport. Id. 47. The officer spoke with them on condition

that his name would not be repeated to anyone outside of the

interview. Although he requested anonymity, the record is clear

that he was an officer of McGlone, that he was involved in the

operation of the site, and that he dealt with Wasserman. The

probative value of this testimony will be discussed below.

43. The officer knew Wasserman was an officer of Local 342 and

the shop steward at the McGlone job site at the Newark Airport. Tr.

47, 55.

44. At the beginning of 1994, the officer and Wasserman had a

conversation about placing safety equipment on the job site. The

officer told Wasserman the equipment was not necessary. Tr. 52.

The company did not install the equipment and the job commenced. Id.

45. Two pieces of equipment were subsequently damaged at the job

site. Id. One spray machine was filled with concrete and another

was pushed off an elevated floor and fell to the ground. Tr. 53.

The resulting damage to the equipment was between $8,000 and

$15,000. Tr. 170. This description corroborates the description of

the damage in the anonymous report made to the IG.

46. Schaffler testified that it is common practice when a

company does not comply with demands for payoffs from LCN controlled

unions, the union may resort to intimidation methods to frighten the

company officials. Id. A common method is to damage equipment. Id.

47. The officer subsequently had a conversation with Wasserman

in which the officer told Wasserman the equipment was damaged and

said " this is not the way for you to put your people to work. " Tr.

53. Wasserman made no reply to this accusation and requested a

meeting. Tr. 54

48. Wasserman, James DiModica, and the officer met at a

restaurant in New Jersey. Tr. 54. Wasserman told the officer that

in exchange for $10,000 to $20,000, McGlone would be free to run

the job site without interference and the company need only pay the

workers enough to " buy a ham sandwich. " Tr. 54-55. The officer

responded that it was not his decision to pay the money and that he

would have to refer them to his boss. Tr. 55. The evidence does

not indicate whether the money was paid.

49. Schaffler testified that he was familiar with the

terms " give them enough for a sandwich " or " give them enough for a

hat. " It was Schaffler's opinion that the statement made by

Wasserman, " pay the workers enough for them to buy a ham sandwich, "

under the circumstances, meant the workers could be paid a moderate

amount for work completed, but the company would not have to adhere

to all terms of the collective bargaining agreement, including

paying fringe benefits such as overtime and adhering to all safety

standards. Tr. 168. In Shaffler's opinion, in return for the

payment, Wasserman and James DiModica would take responsibility for

handling any complaints from the workers. Id.

50. Attorney Gold argues that the testimony of the McGlone

official is not credible. Gold states that the official is biased

against Wasserman because Wasserman came to the meeting to discuss

legitimate safety issues at McGlone, and the official was upset at

being confronted with safety violations. This argument has little

weight because substantial damage had been done to McGlone's

equipment. It would be more cost effective for McGlone to address

legitimate safety issues than to damage its own equipment and blame

Wasserman. I find the official's representation of the events to be

credible, and corroborated by other evidence. See the Discussion,

infra.

E & S Construction

Charge V:

In or around July 1996, Alan D. Wasserman, while a member and

representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed " barred conduct " in

violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure by

committing an act of racketeering in that Wasserman did request and

demand money or a thing of value from E & S Construction, an employer

engaged in an industry affecting interstate commerce, when he

demanded labor payoffs from an employer while being a Union member

and representative (29 U.S.C. §186(b)(1)).

Charge VI:

In or around July 1996, Alan D. Wasserman, demanded labor payoffs

from an employer and offered to allow that employer to use non-Union

labor or to pay LIUNA members less than Union-scale wages and

benefits, and in so doing violated his obligation as a member of the

Union to refrain from interfering with the proper conduct of Union

business, in violation of Article III, Section 3(d) of LIUNA's

Uniform Local Union Constitution and the " Business and Financial

Activities of Union Officials " Chapter, Introductory Paragraph,

Section 2 and Section 4, of the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code.

51. In August 1996, Ed Taylor ( " Taylor " ) from E & S Construction

contacted the LIUNA New Jersey regional office concerning an

allegation against Wasserman. Tr. 56. IG Inspectors met with

Taylor shortly thereafter. Id.

52. Taylor is a former member of LIUNA Local 472 located in

Newark, New Jersey. Tr. 57. After Taylor suffered an injury and

could not work as a laborer, he formed his own construction company.

Id.

53. In July 1996, Taylor maintained a job site along Routes 1

and 9 in New Jersey. Id.

54. In the same month, Taylor received a call from Wasserman who

identified himself as a representative from Local 342 and requested

a meeting. Id. Taylor agreed to the meeting. Id.

55. The following day, Wasserman arrived at Taylor's job site

accompanied with an individual Taylor later identified as James

DiModica. Id.

56. At the start of the meeting, James DiModica stated that he

had just gotten out of jail. Tr. 60.

57. Wasserman told Taylor he knew Taylor had an upcoming

contract at the Newark Airport with the Brown Matthews Company, and

he requested that Taylor use Local 342 workers on that job site.

Tr. 58.

58. Taylor replied that at the time he had three full-time

workers with his company and the workload was just enough for those

three workers. Taylor said if his workload increased he would

definitely call the Local 342 hiring hall for laborers. Id.

59. Wasserman replied by pointing to the Taylor's three Hispanic

workers, calling them an " eyesore, " and telling Taylor he could not

use them because he had to use Local 342 members. Id.

60. Wasserman then made a motion with one of his hands

indicating five fingers. Id. When Wasserman's fingers were waved

at him, Taylor, who was familiar with labor union relationships in

New Jersey, asked if Wasserman was requesting $500 to insure that he

would have no problems with the union. Tr. 59. Wasserman replied

not $500 but $5,000. Id.

61. Taylor told Wasserman he didn't " have that kind of money. "

Id. Wasserman replied that in exchange, Taylor would not have to

pay the workers any benefits. Id. Taylor understood this to mean

that the various fringe benefits, pension annuity, and medical

benefits required by the collective bargaining agreement would not

have to be paid if Taylor complied with the demand. Tr. 59-60.

62. Wasserman told Taylor that if Taylor did make the payment,

Wasserman would make him put up a bond for the benefits at his job

site. Tr. 59.

63. Towards the end of the meeting, James DiModica made a

statement to Taylor that " we have connections, we'll get you paid

faster. " Tr. 60.

64. Subsequently, Taylor positively identified James DiModica

from photographs shown to him by IG Inspectors. Id.

65. I find that there was no reason for James DiModica, who had

no official union position, to accompany Wasserman to Wasserman's

meetings with Taylor or VHR Construction. The Wasserman/James

DiModica visits to the contractors appears, under these

circumstances, to be a joint venture in extortion.

66. The statements of Taylor as to what the demands meant and

the expert opinion of Schaffler as to the nature of the modus

operandi of extortionate practices are credible and well founded.

67. Attorney Gold contends that the appearance of James DiModica

with Wasserman where money was solicited from employers was not in

itself improper. Gold argues that DiModica might have been a shop

steward on at least one of the jobs, and his appearance on any of

the jobs was not prohibited. As discussed below, James DiModica was

an associate of organized crime. On one occasion he suddenly

requested a Christmas gift from the employer and on another he began

the conversation by informing the employer that he had just been

released from jail. James DiModica's appearance with Wasserman was

intended to serve the purpose of intimidating the contractor.

68. Attorney Gold also contends that since none of the

complaining persons ever alleged that as a result of denying payoffs

they suffered any reprisals. He argues that the LCN would not

permit a refusal to go unpunished. There is no evidence to indicate

whether or not the payments were made. The record is silent on that

matter; however, there is evidence that equipment at McGlone was

heavily damaged after McGlone refused to install the requested

safety apparatus.

Knowing Association With The LCN

Charge VII:

From in or around 1994 through 1997, Alan D. Wasserman, while a

member and representative of LIUNA Local 342, committed " barred

conduct " in violation of the LIUNA Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure

by knowingly associating with La Cosa Nostra crime family members or

associates, including Vincent " Juicy " DiModica, a convicted member

of the Gambino crime family and James DiModica, an associate of the

Gambino crime family.

69. Wasserman has been a member of LIUNA Local 342 in Newark,

New Jersey for approximately ten years.

70. At the time of the hearing in this matter, Wasserman was the

Business Manager of Local 342. He was appointed by the Executive

Board to succeed James Proto. Wasserman has also served in the

positions of field representative and a shop steward of Local 342.

71. The GEB Attorney offered the history of Local 342 described

above in paragraphs 8 through 28 and the following testimony of Elko

as evidence of Wasserman's associations with the Gambino family.

72. Based upon his years of investigation, including the

aforementioned information in paragraphs 8 through 28, and

corroborating interviews with Cagno, Accetturo, and Ricciardi, Elko

concluded that Juicy DiModica is a made member of organized crime

and in charge of a Gambino family crew in New Jersey. Tr. 119.

73. Based upon his information, including direct information

from Cagno, Lieutenant Masucci and Special Agent Montgomery and

eleven years of surveillance, Elko concluded that James DiModica is

an associate of the Gambino family. Tr. 120-21, 129. Id.

74. Based upon direct information from Cagno, information from

Masucci and Montgomery, and eleven years of surveillance, Elko

concluded that Wasserman is an associate of the Gambino family. Tr.

123, 129.

Discussion

The IHO must base his decisions on reliable evidence through a

review of what is probative and reliable. Attorney Gold objects to

the use of hearsay evidence in this proceeding. Contrary to his

assertion, however, reliable hearsay evidence is admissible in labor

arbitrations. Associated Cleaning Consultants and International

Brotherhood of Printing and Allied Trades Local 327, 94 LA 1246

(1990); In the Matter of Joseph P. Crincoli, IHO Order and

Memorandum, 97-04D (Oct. 27, 1997); In Re: Trusteeship Proceedings

Chicago District Council, IHO Order and Memorandum, 97-30T (Feb. 7,

1998); Elkouri and Elkouri, How Arbitration Works (4th ed. 1994).

Hearsay evidence has been admitted regularly in union disciplinary

proceedings arising under the Teamsters Consent Decree. United

States v. IBT (Cimino), 964 F.2d 1308 (2d Cir. 1992), at 1312, aff'g

United States v. IBT(Cimino), 777 F.Supp. 1130 (S.D.N.Y. 1991);

United States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico), 941 F.2d 1292 (2d Cir.

1991), at 1297, aff'g United States v. IBT (Senese & Talerico), 745

F. Supp. 908 (S.D.N.Y. 1990). The test is whether the evidence is

reliable. Senese & Talerico, 941 F.2d at 1298 (citing Richardson v.

Perales, 402 U.S. 389, 402 (1971)).

The testimony of the IG Inspectors regarding statements of

contractors describing the incidents at VHR Construction, B.J.

McGlone Co., and E & S Construction are hearsay; however, they

demonstrate a similar pattern, and similar demands were related by

three individuals who have neither bias nor reason to falsify. The

individuals knew their statements would eventually be known when

they spoke to the investigating officials, yet they still exposed

themselves to the risk of voluntary cooperation. One of the

individuals initiated contact with officials. I recognize that one

of the individuals has remained unnamed and, standing alone, his

statements would not be probative. Nonetheless, I give evidentiary

weight to his information due to the striking similarity between the

three incidents. The hearsay statements of the unnamed individual

match the hearsay statements of the named individuals. The

statements describe the same modus operandi, the same labor

extortion goals during roughly the same time period, and involve the

same two perpetrators. I find that the hearsay statements of the

contractors corroborate each other and I find the evidence to be

reliable especially given the very similar pattern. See Senese &

Talerico, 745 F. Supp. At 915 (court found hearsay evidence reliable

based upon FBI Agent's information being culled from various sources

and the various sources' corroboration of one another). See also

Cimino, 964 F.2d at 1312 (court used a number of factors to evaluate

reliability giving evidentiary weight to hearsay declarations of

three LCN members related by FBI agent; factors included

corroborating statements in crucial respects, a consistent picture

of the relationship of the individuals and the statements matched

the FBI agent's declaration in the subject matter).

The EDP prohibits members from engaging in barred conduct. Barred

conduct includes, among others, committing any act of racketeering.

See EDP § 1. The EDP also incorporates the Ethical Practices Code

( " EPC " ). The EPC defines barred conduct to include in pertinent

part: " committing any act of racketeering, as defined in Title 18 of

the United States Code, section 1961(1) … " See EPC, Barred

Conduct. Title 29 U.S.C. § 186 is included as a racketeering

violation in 18 U.S.C. § 1961(a).

Title 29 U.S.C. § 186, makes it illegal for a labor leader to

request and or to receive anything of value from a contractor with

whom he has a collective bargaining agreement:

It shall be unlawful for any person to request, demand, receive, or

accept, or agree to receive or accept, any payment, loan, or

delivery of any money or other thing of value prohibited by

subsection (a) of this section.

29 U.S.C. § 186 (b)(1) (emphasis added). Section 186 (a)(1)

prohibits " giving any money or other thing of value to any labor

organization, or any officer or employee thereof, which represents,

seeks to represent, or would admit to membership, any of the

employees of such employer who are employed in an industry affecting

commerce. " Respondent argues that the IG Inspector never asked

Wortman if he believed the request for a gift was an " extortion or a

demand. " The argument has no merit; any form of request is

prohibited.

Barred conduct also includes " knowingly associating " with members of

an organized crime family such as the LCN, and knowingly allowing an

LCN member or associate to influence a LIUNA officer. See EDP § 1.

Under the EDP, the term " knowingly associate " means that: (1) the

union member knew the person with whom he or she was associating was

a member or associate of the LCN; (2) the association related

directly or indirectly to the affairs of the union; and (3) the

association was more than fleeting or casual. Id.

In Senese & Talerico, the Court upheld the IBT Independent

Administrator's determination that " `knowing association' can be

inferred from the duration and quality of the association. " 745

F.Supp at 918. There is no doubt Wasserman knew the persons with

whom he was associating were members of organized crime. The

individuals with whom Wasserman dealt were identified as well known

members of organized crime families by three former organized crime

members. The association was not fleeting or casual. Wasserman

attended meetings with contractors accompanied by James DiModica, a

known associate of organized crime, whose presence was not related

to the ordinary course of union business. Wasserman took James

DiModica along for his intimidation factor. Wasserman had to have

known James DiModica was associated with organized crime; there was

no other reason for DiModica to accompany him. A similar conclusion

was reached by the Independent Administrator in Cimino where the

Independent Administrator found that Cimino had to have known of

Nicodemo Scarfo's Philadelphia organized crime ties during their

association because " the very purpose of that relationship " was

allowing Scarfo to use Cimino and the local union to " further his La

Cosa Nostra interests. " Investigations Officer v. Joseph Cimino,

Jr., Decision of the Independent Administrator, IBT Trusteeship (May

28, 1991) at 9); (Cimino), 777 F.Supp. 1130 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), aff'd.,

964 F.2d 1308 (2nd Cir. 1992). The relationship between Wasserman

and James DiModica was obviously an illegal joint venture to extort

union contractors with the approval of the Gambino family.

The GEB Attorney offered evidence to demonstrate that Wasserman was

a part time no-show shop steward and argued that being a no-show

shop steward is evidence of being associated with organized crime.

I do not find this evidence to be probative of Wasserman's organized

crime association.

Obstruction

Charge IX:

On or about June 27, 1996, Alan D. Wasserman, on being interviewed

by investigators of LIUNA's Inspector General's Office,

committed " barred conduct " in violation of the LIUNA Ethics and

Disciplinary Procedure and the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code by

refusing to answer questions, terminating the interview, and thereby

obstructing and interfering with an investigation being conducted by

the LIUNA Inspector General's Office.

Findings of Fact

75. In May 1996, IG Inspectors interviewed Wasserman at his

residence in Union, New Jersey. Tr. 61, 64.

76. In June 1996, IG Inspectors attempted to interview Wasserman

a second time at the VHR job site at the Newark Airport to obtain

the additional information about James DiModica. Tr. 64.

77. They met Wasserman as he came out of the security area. The

IG Inspectors offered to speak with him in the coffee shop. Tr.

65. Wasserman stated he preferred to speak at the VHR trailer

outside the parking lot area and the IG Inspectors agreed. Id.

78. The IG Inspectors told Wasserman they needed more

information on the identity of James DiModica. Id. Wasserman

refused to speak with them and stated he was very concerned that

someone had broken into his house three days after the May 1996

interview with the IG Inspectors. Tr. 66.

79. Wasserman refused to reply to questions about James DiModica

and began to leave the area. Id. The IG Inspector told Wasserman

he should remain and speak with them. Tr. 66. Wasserman refused

and left the building. Id.

80. Outside the building, IG Inspectors again requested that

Wasserman speak to them. Tr. 66. Wasserman again refused. Tr. 66-

67.

81. I find that Wasserman purposefully refused to submit to an

IG interview, and thereby obstructed the IG investigation.

CHARGE X

On or about July 8, 1997, Alan D. Wasserman at his deposition

committed " barred conduct " in violation of the LIUNA Ethics and

Disciplinary Procedure and the LIUNA Ethical Practices Code by

falsely testifying that he had been elected by the general

membership to be the Business Agent for Local 342 despite knowing

that the general membership did not elect him and that he instead

was appointed to the position.

82. I find the fact that Wasserman's statements that he was

elected rather than having been appointed, was not a material fact

and was not in violation of the EPC.

CHARGES XI-IV

83. Disciplinary Charges XI-XIII allege that Wasserman falsely

testified at his deposition, that he never demanded a Christmas gift

from a contractor, that he never demanded things of value from a

contractor in exchange for labor peace, that he never attempted to

extort Victor Wortmann or VHR Construction, and that he never met

with or approached contractors with James DiModica. The

preponderance of the evidence proves that Wasserman did perform all

of these acts and when he was asked about them under oath he denied

his participation.

84. Disciplinary Charge XIV alleges Wasserman committed barred

conduct in violation of the EDP and EPC by falsely testifying at his

July 8, 1997 deposition that he never knowingly associated with

members or associates of organized crime. See GEB Ex. 1. The

preponderance of the evidence shows he gave false testimony when he

was asked about his connections with organized crime and he denied

them.

Conclusions

1. During the period of time alleged in the charges, Local

342 was dominated by members or associates of the Gambino crime

family.

2. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman

committed barred conduct by requesting money from VHR Construction

in violation of 29 U.S.C. § 186 (b)(1) and the EPC.

3. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman

committed barred conduct by demanding money from B.J. McGlone & Co.,

Inc., in violation of 29 U.S.C. § 186 (b)(1) and the EPC.

4. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman

committed barred conduct by offering to allow B.J. McGlone & Co.,

Inc. to use non-union labor or to pay LIUNA members less than union-

scale wages and benefits in violation of 29 U.S.C. ' 186 (b)(1) and

the EPC.

5. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman

committed barred conduct by demanding money in exchange for labor

peace from E & S Construction, in violation of 29 U.S.C. ' 186 (b)

(1) and the EPC.

6. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman

committed barred conduct by offering to allow E & S Construction to

pay LIUNA members less than union-scale wages and benefits in

violation of 186 ' (b)(1) and the EPC.

7. There is a preponderance of the evidence that

Vincent " Juicy " DiModica is a member of the Gambino family and James

DiModica is an associate of the Gambino family.

8. There is a preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman

knowingly associated with members of organized crime, thereby

committing barred conduct under the EDP.

9. The evidence clearly demonstrates that Wasserman's

associations with organized crime directly affected the affairs of

the union. Wasserman took a known LCN associate on his visits to

contractors and demanded payments in exchange for labor peace and

permission to use either non-union labor or non-union scale wages

and benefits. The Wasserman/James DiModica venture was an on-going

scheme to extort contractors.

10. There is preponderance of the evidence that Wasserman

committed barred conduct by giving false testimony at his deposition

when questioned about his association with organized crime and his

dealings with VHR Construction, B.J. McGlone & Co., Inc., and E & S

Construction.

11. Wasserman's statement that he was elected to be a Business

Agent of Local 342, rather than appointed was not a material

misstatement and did not obstruct the GEB Attorney.

Decision

Charges I-IX and Charges XI-XIV have been proved by a preponderance

of the evidence. Charge X has not been proved by a preponderance of

the evidence.

Penalty

Wasserman's membership in LIUNA is permanently revoked. Wasserman

is permanently barred from holding an office in or being employed by

Local 342 or from being an officer or being employed by any LIUNA

affiliated entity or fund.

Wasserman has a right to appeal this Order to the LIUNA Appellate

Officer by filing a Notice of Appeal with the Appellate Officer

within 10 days of the date this Order.

Peter F. Vaira

INDEPENDENT HEARING OFFICER

 

 

[1]See previous IHO findings pertaining to LCN history in the United

States, In the Matter of Fallacara, IHO Order and Memorandum, 96-65D

(Sep. 25, 1997) at 2-3. See also In Re Trusteeship Proceedings

Chicago District Council, IHO Order and Memorandum, 97-30T (Feb

7,1998); In re Bifulco, IHO Order and Memorandum, 95-48D(1-28)

(March 17, 1998).

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