Joel Cicero, husband of ousted Laborers Local 91 Secretary Cheryl Cicero and son-in-law of indicted union boss Michael "Butch" Quarcini, was himself indicted last week in what law enforcement sources say was a direct result of a series of investigative articles begun in the Reporter last October.
Colorado businessman Joe Aragon charged he was shaken down by indicted Local 91 union thug Mark Congi and henchman Joel Cicero, who was then a Mario Cuomo-appointed member of the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission. Both Cicero and Congi were named in a multi-count federal indictment unsealed last week.
Aragon used the word "extortion" to describe the way he was treated, and said Cicero used his position on the Bridge Commission to force the hiring of Local 91 members on a construction project here. Cicero was booted from the Bridge Commission by Gov. George Pataki in January. Aragon, who has built 47 Pizza Hut-Taco Bell restaurants around the country with his company, ProServe Corp., tried building one on the New York side of the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge in the spring of 2002.
That's when the trouble began. Joel Cicero, he said, turned the project into a nightmare. "These guys (Cicero and Congi) took me and a friend into a room," Aragon said. "They told me I was going to have to hire some guys. I thought I was in a James Cagney movie."
Bridge Commissioner Cicero was also an official in Laborers Local 91, a union identified by federal prosecutors last year as a "criminal enterprise" when indictments were handed down against 14 of its officials and workers.
"I went down to the union hall and Cicero was sitting in this big chair like a judge or something," Aragon said. "Mark Congi told me, 'We never forget and you'll never get away from us.'"
Aragon says Cicero and Congi "put the arm" on him in an attempt to get him to hire Local 91 workers. Undeterred, Aragon proceeded with his construction. Violent pickets began. Despite the fact he had put one of the Laborers on the job, the thugs wanted more and wouldn't let up. "I had one girl who worked for me hit by a car, incidents of vandalism and threats," Aragon said. "I've never seen anything like it."
The Bridge Commission was no help, he added.
"Joel Cicero was the Bridge Commission," he said. "He told me I'd better play ball, or else."
The Reporter immediately put Aragon in touch with William Hochul, the U.S. Attorney on the Local 91 case. Hochul has aggressively prosecuted the case, in which Laborers have been indicted under racketeering statutes for a series of bombings, beatings, vandalism and extortionate threats stretching back more than a decade.
"I'll testify anytime, any place," Aragon said at the time. "I spent a million dollars to build this thing and this is the only place in the country where I had to go out of business. I believe Cicero and Congi were directly responsible."
Since its opening, the Pizza Hut-Taco Bell at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge was plagued by bad business. It closed last September. According to Aragon, the threats of Mark Congi and Joel Cicero were delivered.
"If we put the word out, you won't have a truck stop here," Aragon said Congi told him. Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by terrorists who weren't members of Local 91, virtually all of the traffic across the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge has been truckers. And, as Congi forewarned, they weren't stopping.
The Laborers put the screw in with the Teamsters to stay away from the restaurant, Aragon said.
All told, 25 Niagara County restaurant employees were thrown out of work, a successful businessman from Colorado lost a million dollars and now characterizes his time in Niagara Falls as something out of a gangster movie. Because that was the power of Laborers Local 91 here and because the fix was in from a Bridge Commissioner who has finally been indicted.
In addition to building fast food restaurants, a large part of Aragon's ProServe Corp. business is providing food service to federal and state penitentiaries, he said. Perhaps some of the Laborers who tried to drive him out of business will one day get a chance to sample his cuisine.
Aragon plans to file civil suits against both the Bridge Commission and Laborers Local 91.
For the record, the Niagara Gazette refused to publish Aragon's allegations.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 1 2003 |