The Niagara Falls Bridge Commission, in anticipation of an impending $1 million lawsuit, is circling the wagons around Commissioner and prominent Laborers Local 91 official Joel Cicero, who stands accused by a wealthy Colorado developer of using his position to drive up labor costs on a recent project at the Lewiston Queenston Bridge.
Meanwhile, highly placed sources close to Gov. George Pataki told the Reporter this week that the chances of Cicero retaining his position on the Commission after the first of the year are slim to none.
"His removal from the Commission has become a priority in Albany," said one source, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "He's become an embarrassment."
Cicero is the son-in-law of former union boss Michael "Butch" Quarcini, who is one of 14 Laborers currently under federal indictment on numerous counts of racketeering and extortion. His wife, Cheryl Cicero, was ousted from her position as secretary of the local earlier this year after refusing to cooperate with overseers from the Laborers International Union of North America brought in to run the Seneca Avenue union hall in the wake of the indictments.
In an exclusive Oct. 15 Reporter interview, Colorado developer Joe Aragon charged that Cicero, along with indicted Local 91 union thug Mark Congi, tried using extortion tactics to force him to hire more Laborers than were needed during the $1 million construction of a fast-food restaurant in the bridge's duty-free plaza last spring.
Aragon, whose company, ProServe Corp., has successfully built 47 Pizza Hut-Taco Bell restaurants around the country in recent years, flew to Buffalo at his own expense last month for a face-to-face meeting with Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hochul and investigators from the Organized Crime Task Force assigned to the Local 91 case. A second meeting is planned for this month.
The U.S. Attorney's office has issued repeated statements warning that the Local 91 members currently under indictment may be joined by others as new information develops.
"If people connected to Local 91 continue to participate in this kind of activity, there will be more arrests," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Battle told the Reporter.
In addition to his discussions with federal prosecutors, Aragon said he is also trying to arrange a meeting with state Sen. George Maziarz in order to personally tell him of his year-long ordeal. While the Bridge Commission is not a state agency, its American members serve at the pleasure of the governor of New York.
The developer's lawyers and private investigators have been in contact with Bridge Commission officials seeking a resolution to the problem, a resolution that isn't likely to materialize.
"They know there's a tremendous liability here and, for now, they're sticking to their story," a source close to the Commission said.
At the same time Cicero oversaw millions of dollars in construction projects with the Bridge Commission, he was pulling down more than $80,000 a year as head of a nebulous training program set up by Local 91. When he was appointed to the Commission by former governor Mario Cuomo, Cicero was neither a known associate of indicted racketeers or an officer in what federal prosecutors have described as a "criminal enterprise."
But things have since changed, and he is now the highest-ranking unindicted member of the local.
The restaurant Aragon opened last spring was the target of vandalism and picketing, and since the Lewiston Queenston Bridge has been restricted to truck traffic for more than a year, the Teamsters who should have been its prime customers have stayed away in droves.
"(Cicero and Congi) told me they would put the word out to the Teamsters," Aragon said. "It's pretty obvious they did."
Twenty-five full- and part-time employees lost their jobs when the restaurant closed in September, becoming the first and only of Aragon's 47 franchises to fail.
Aragon characterized his experience in Niagara Falls as "something out of a James Cagney movie."
Describing one meeting with Cicero and Congi at Local 91 headquarters earlier this year, Aragon said: "Mark Congi told me, 'We never forget and you'll never get away from us.'"
The tactics are familiar to the many honest Local 91 members who have contacted the Reporter over the past 18 months.
"I don't know what these guys are thinking," said one longtime Laborer. "Do they think no one is looking at them?"
Things were different prior to the indictments, he added, citing a 1990s project on the Grand Island Bridge.
"They must have thrown 90 jackhammers off the bridge. The contractor had to hire skin divers to go in the river and fish them out," he said. "But times change, and that's what some of those guys don't realize."
One indication of change is the willingness of Niagara County prosecutors and police agencies to go after Local 91 members on charges that, prior to the federal indictments, might have been plea bargained out or dismissed entirely.
In October, three Laborers were convicted of charges stemming from an attack on a state Department of Transportation employee, and the Niagara Falls Police Department's investigation into whether Quarcini himself aided and abetted a recent jailbreak by his grandson, Michael Quarcini Jr., is ongoing.
Niagara County District Attorney Matthew J. Murphy III told the Reporter that criminal activities by the Laborers will no longer be tolerated here.
"It's an indication that the reign of terror is over," he said. "The thought that somehow Laborers Local 91 was immune from the normal process of law is just not valid any more."
With federal prosecutors now looking into Cicero's actions as a member of the Bridge Commission, and with his ouster all but guaranteed in Albany, other Commission members may live to regret their protectionist stance.
The Commission's attorney, James Roscetti, was unavailable for comment late last week.
Aragon said last week that his suit would seek upwards of $1 million in damages and that his attorneys are in the process of researching issues regarding the Bridge Commission's legal status. The Commission is unusual in that it is a "stand alone" agency, operating in both the United States and Canada without any state or federal oversight.
"Once that's been cleared up, we're ready to roll," he said.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 3 2002 |