Friends of Ours

FBI Informant Pens Mob Busting Memoir

For 17 years Ronald M. Fino helped the FBI break the Mafia's grip on the Laborers International Union of North America while he served as the business manager for Local 210 in Buffalo, NY, and now the informant is writing a memoir about his experience as reported by Dan Herbeck for The Buffalo News: "the public record shows that Fino was one of the government's key sources of information in the investigation that led to a takeover of Laborers' unions all over the country in 1996."

Buffalo Mob Buster Charles Wydysh Retires

Federal prosecutor Charles Wydysh joined the Department of Justice's Organized Crime Strike Force in 1978, and now is retiring after 34 years of service to the country which included routing out the mob fom construction union Laborers Local 210 in Buffalo, NY as reported by Phil Fairbanks for The Buffalo News.

Chicagoland: God Bless The Union Man

It's a good gig if you can get it.

In 2002 James Capasso Jr. applied for a pension upon his supposed retirement from Laborers' Local 1001 as reported by Jason Grotto for the Chicago Tribune.  However, he apparently never had a paying job with the local but merely served in "something of an honorary position" as an unpaid auditor.  He was appointed in 1984 to the mysterious post by Ernest Kumerow, son-in-law of reputed Chicago Outfit overlord Anthony Accardo, and his timesheets were signed off "by two Local 1001 officials who were eventually ousted from the union because of ties to organized crime and pension fraud."

The pension fund for Local 1001 rejected Capasso's request.  But don't cry for him.  Capasso is the long-standing executive director of the Laborers' Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, a city pension fund with more than $1 billion in assets, for which he makes over $100,000, and when he retires from this job will collect a city pension of about $96,000 a year. 

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Related:

"Double-dipping labor leaders stand to reap millions from union retirement funds while also collecting city pensions" by Jason Grotto for the Chicago Tribune

Ralph Scopo Sues Concrete Union

Last March the Laborers Union International of North America booted Ralph Scopo as business manager and removed the entire executive board from Local 6A of the New York Cement and Concrete Workers "which claimed the union was owned 'lock, stock and cement mixer' by the Colombos," and now Scopo is suing over the ouster as reported by Jamie Schram for the New York Post.

Scopo is the son and grandson of reputed Colombo mobsters Ralph Scopo Jr. and Ralph "Little Ralphie" Scopo Sr., respectively, and the scion alleges in the suit that he was targeted because he shares the same family name:  "I'm not my father. I'm not my grandfather."

Little Ralphie was convicted in the Mafia Commission trial  for his role in the so-called Concrete Club which extorted payments from contractors and died in March 1993 while serving a 100-year prison sentence, and last January Ralph Jr. was among several suspected Colombo mobsters charged with controlling Local 6A through extortion.

The ousted grandson tells the New York Post that "not only have I never engaged in criminal activity, but the FBI has confirmed that on more than one occasion," and indeed, the indictment alleging Colombo control over Local 6A makes no reference to Ralph Scopo.

Ralph Scopo Gets Booted From Concrete Union

The Laborers Union International of North America has booted Ralph Scopo as business manager and removed the entire executive board from Local 6A of the New York Cement and Concrete Workers "in an effort to break decades of [alleged] Colombo crime family control" as reported by Brian Kates for the Daily News. Last January Robert Luskin, the special counsel for LUINA, claimed that reputed Colombo boss Carmine "Junior" Persico "is still the ultimate power behind" Local 6A Workers as reported by Jerry Capeci for The Huffington Post. Soldier-turned-informant Dino "Big Dino" Calabro -- a former loyalist to Persico -- alleged that the coffee boys assigned by Local 6A on New York City construction sites must pay off the Colombo family as previously reported by Greg B. Smith for the Daily News: "Calabro told the FBI that in the early 1980s, Colombo soldier Ralph Scopo Jr. came up with the idea of making all Local 6A coffee boys cough up $250 a week to the mob."