Post by truckerusa on Nov 4, 2008 14:01:55 GMT -5
The JOURNAL of COMMERCE
Mob Figure Accused of ILA Extortion
November 4, 2008
By Joseph Bonney
NEWARK, N.J. -- A Mafia figure in prison for avoiding prosecution in a 1977 mob murder has been charged in a federal indictment that accuses him of extortion and conspiracy to extort members of International Longshoremen's Association Local 1235 in Newark, N.J.
Michael Coppola, 62, allegedly a captain in the Genovese crime family, was charged in a six-count indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
In a separate case, the U.S. attorney's office continues to pursue a civil racketeering lawsuit against the ILA.
The indictment of Coppola accuses him of racketeering activity that includes the 1977 murder of Giovanni Larducci, also known as John Lardiere, in Bridgewater, N.J.; extortion and conspiracy to extort Local 1235 members, and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit identification documentation fraud.
The latter two charges stem from Copppola's alleged flight in 1996 to avoid prosecution for the 1977 murder. He was arrested in 2007 in New York after more than a decade in hiding. Prosecutors noted that items seized in his apartment after his arrest included a book entitled, "The Methods of Attacking Scientific Evidence."
In May, Coppola pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to conceal his whereabouts from investigators, and was sentenced to 42 months in prison. New Jersey officials have not filed state charges accusing him of the Larducci/Lardiere murder. DNA tests after his arrests proved inconclusive, and Coppola has asked that the case be dismissed.
Prosecutors said that three days before his arrest, Coppola was intercepted in a telephone conversation admitting organized-crime control over the leadership of Local 1235, one of the ILA's largest units, since the Seventies. The U.S. attorney's office said that during the call, Eddie Aulisi, son of the local's then-president, Vincent Aulisi, told Coppola that tribute payments to the Genovese family had recently "almost doubled."
After hearing of that wiretapped conversation, the ILA's ethical-practices counsel, retired New York State Judge Milton Mollen, recommended that Local 1235 be placed under union trusteeship and that Eddie Aulisi, who had refused to answer questions about the incident, be expelled from the union. The ILA's executive committee accepted both recommendations.
In a detention memo filed with the court after Coppola's arrest last year, prosecutors alleged that Coppola and his stepson were involved in the murder of Larry Ricci, a mobster who disappeared in the middle of a 2005 ILA racketeering trial where he was a defendant along with three of the union's top leaders.
Ricci was found shot to death in a car trunk outside a Union, N.J., diner shortly after he and two of his co-defendants, ILA officials Harold Daggett and Arthur Coffey, were acquitted of racketeering charges. No charges have been filed in that murder.
The third of Ricci's co-defendants, Al Cernadas, the international union's executive vice president and the longtime head of Local 1235, pleaded guilty to conspiracy before the trial began. As part of his plea-bargain agreement, Cernadas agreed to sever all connections with the ILA.
Mob Figure Accused of ILA Extortion
November 4, 2008
By Joseph Bonney
NEWARK, N.J. -- A Mafia figure in prison for avoiding prosecution in a 1977 mob murder has been charged in a federal indictment that accuses him of extortion and conspiracy to extort members of International Longshoremen's Association Local 1235 in Newark, N.J.
Michael Coppola, 62, allegedly a captain in the Genovese crime family, was charged in a six-count indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
In a separate case, the U.S. attorney's office continues to pursue a civil racketeering lawsuit against the ILA.
The indictment of Coppola accuses him of racketeering activity that includes the 1977 murder of Giovanni Larducci, also known as John Lardiere, in Bridgewater, N.J.; extortion and conspiracy to extort Local 1235 members, and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit identification documentation fraud.
The latter two charges stem from Copppola's alleged flight in 1996 to avoid prosecution for the 1977 murder. He was arrested in 2007 in New York after more than a decade in hiding. Prosecutors noted that items seized in his apartment after his arrest included a book entitled, "The Methods of Attacking Scientific Evidence."
In May, Coppola pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to conceal his whereabouts from investigators, and was sentenced to 42 months in prison. New Jersey officials have not filed state charges accusing him of the Larducci/Lardiere murder. DNA tests after his arrests proved inconclusive, and Coppola has asked that the case be dismissed.
Prosecutors said that three days before his arrest, Coppola was intercepted in a telephone conversation admitting organized-crime control over the leadership of Local 1235, one of the ILA's largest units, since the Seventies. The U.S. attorney's office said that during the call, Eddie Aulisi, son of the local's then-president, Vincent Aulisi, told Coppola that tribute payments to the Genovese family had recently "almost doubled."
After hearing of that wiretapped conversation, the ILA's ethical-practices counsel, retired New York State Judge Milton Mollen, recommended that Local 1235 be placed under union trusteeship and that Eddie Aulisi, who had refused to answer questions about the incident, be expelled from the union. The ILA's executive committee accepted both recommendations.
In a detention memo filed with the court after Coppola's arrest last year, prosecutors alleged that Coppola and his stepson were involved in the murder of Larry Ricci, a mobster who disappeared in the middle of a 2005 ILA racketeering trial where he was a defendant along with three of the union's top leaders.
Ricci was found shot to death in a car trunk outside a Union, N.J., diner shortly after he and two of his co-defendants, ILA officials Harold Daggett and Arthur Coffey, were acquitted of racketeering charges. No charges have been filed in that murder.
The third of Ricci's co-defendants, Al Cernadas, the international union's executive vice president and the longtime head of Local 1235, pleaded guilty to conspiracy before the trial began. As part of his plea-bargain agreement, Cernadas agreed to sever all connections with the ILA.
