The Colorado developer whose testimony led to the federal indictment of former Niagara Falls Bridge Commissioner Joel Cicero and heaped additional charges on indicted Laborers Local 91 strong arm Mark Congi says the Commission and concessionaire Duty Free America colluded with the Laborers to steal more than $1 million worth of property from him.
Joe Aragon, whose company, ProServe Corp., has built 47 Pizza Hut-Taco Bell restaurants around the country, tried building one at the American entrance of the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge three years ago.
He had a contract with Duty Free America, which had contracted with the Bridge Commission to provide amenities at all three of the international bridges serving Niagara Falls.
The Laborers staged violent pickets during the restaurant's construction, first complaining there weren't any of their union workers on the job and then later, after Aragon made concessions, that there weren't enough.
The restaurant opened in April 2001, and closed six months later, throwing 25 people out of work. Aragon said Cicero and Congi said they would use their influence with the Teamsters union to keep truckers from patronizing the eatery.
In 2002, after reading articles about Local 91 in the Reporter's online edition, Aragon contacted the paper. The Reporter chronicled his plight, and the developer was put in touch with federal prosecutors in Buffalo who had then recently indicted the union's leadership on multiple counts of racketeering conspiracy and extortion.
Aragon says he was a victim of both those crimes, and he wants his money back.
The Bridge Commission has been fighting tooth and nail against any attempt by the developer to find out exactly what happened. Joel Cicero -- son-in-law of Local 91 kingpin Michael "Butch" Quarcini -- was kicked off the Bridge Commission by Gov. George Pataki in January of last year. Shortly afterward, the feds handed him a multi-count indictment related to the Aragon affair.
But as recently as last month, Bridge Commission Counsel James Roscetti steadfastly refused to provide Aragon's attorneys with documents related to Cicero and the case. In correspondence, Roscetti maintains that, as an "international agency," the Commission is exempt from both federal and state Freedom of Information requirements.
This opinion was refuted in a May 2003 letter by Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government. Freeman wrote that, under federal law, the Bridge Commission constitutes a public agency of the State of New York, and thereby is covered by the statute.
In any event, the depositions have begun. Exactly how could an influential bridge commissioner with close ties to a union local branded as a "criminal enterprise" by federal law enforcement officials be permitted to intercede when that union local is engaging in violence on Bridge Commission property?
The sworn Nov. 18 testimony of Victor Montalbo, the Bridge Commission's chief financial officer, is particularly telling. In his 105-page deposition, Montalbo argues that, even though he was acting director of the Commission during much of the time in question, he pretty much didn't know what the hell was going on.
When asked by Aragon's attorney, Jeffrey Villanueva, whether the Commission had ever sought a ruling on whether or not it was even legal to picket on the bridge, Montalbo said he couldn't remember.
"I don't recall," he said. "I know we have on the Canadian side -- we have on the Canadian side. On the U.S. side, I don't recall. We possibly could have. I don't recall. I know that we, you know, we tried to get the pickets removed, but I don't know if there was a -- if we sought a legal opinion on that. I believe we did but I'm not positive."
Montalbo was acting director of the commission in October 2000, when the picketing began. Once he was made aware of it, he approached Cicero, he said.
Villanueva asked him why he thought of Cicero. Montalbo didn't provide much of an answer.
"My -- our general manager, who I report directly to, was out of town so I was in charge. I think it was a Monday morning. And I was in charge so I had to -- you know, I talked to our -- I believe I made a phone call to our general manager, you know, and said we've got pickets and they're -- I knew that there were laborers, carpenters and drywallers. And I had already talked to the business agent on site to find out, you know, why they were there," Montalbo said.
The business agent was Mark Congi, the alleged leader of Local 91's "Goon Squad."
Montalbo said Congi complained about the lack of Laborers working on the project. That was when Montalbo decided to call Cicero, he testified.
"So I called Mr. Cicero and I said -- you know, our aim is to get the pickets out of there. I was actually trying to get the pickets moved out to Military Road and this way, you know, we wouldn't have any problems out there and the project could continue. We wouldn't have any damage done or any other things going on," Montalbo said.
"I said to Mr. Cicero, you know, they can't picket where they're picketing. And he said, well, yeah, they can; our attorney says they can and, you know, that until we get union people on the job then, you know, they're going to -- the pickets probably were going to stay there," he added.
Federal prosecutors who obtained indictments against 14 top members of Local 91 took particular interest in the connection between Cicero and Congi in connection with the ProServe project.
Aragon told the Reporter -- and later the feds -- that he and an associate were summoned to a meeting with Congi and Cicero at the Laborers' Seneca Avenue headquarters.
"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.
"Cicero was sitting in this big chair like a judge or something. Mark Congi told me, 'We never forget and you'll never get away from us,'" he added.
Cicero, Congi and 11 other Laborers will go to trial later this year on a boatload of charges that include racketeering, extortion and conspiracy. The ProServe case is typical of numerous instances in which the union used threats and intimidation to achieve its ends.
If convicted, they could face 20 years in a federal penitentiary.
The union's longtime kingpin, Michael "Butch" Quarcini, died last year before the case could be brought to trial.
But criminal indictments and convictions won't be enough for Joe Aragon. He lost more than $1 million on the project at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, and he wants his money back.
He also lost a sense of pride in knowing that he'd never before experienced a business failure, and proving in a court of law that what happened to him here was the result of collusion involving essentially corrupt organizations will go a long way toward restoring that.
With a team of attorneys and private investigators working on the case, the millionaire developer has vowed not to rest until justice is ultimately served.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 13 2004 |