BUFFALO - Construction union thugs used the state Department of Motor Vehicles database to target nonmember workers and their families for violence, property damage and threats of sexual assault, federal officials said Tuesday as they announced the arrests of 12 union leaders and members.
The president of Operating Engineers Local 17, Mark Kirsch, and several other high-ranking officials and members were charged with extortion and racketeering in an eight-count indictment detailing a 10-year reign authorities said stunted economic growth in a struggling part of the state.
“At the end of the day, it cost the job sites and the developers and the workers millions of dollars in property damage, millions of dollars in lost jobs,” U.S. Attorney Terrance Flynn said.
At job sites big and small where non-Local 17 members were hired, union members caused more than $1 million in damage to more than 40 pieces of heavy machinery by pouring sand and grinding compound into the oil systems, breaking windows, destroying tires and cutting fuel lines, investigators said.
Particularly unnerving to investigators was the union's ability to run potential victims' license plates through the DMV database to obtain personal information, including their wives' names and addresses.
“It was astounding to us,” Flynn said.
The union had an account with DMV that was meant to allow it to ensure its own vehicles were properly registered and inspected, but the account was abused on several occasions, Flynn said.
“They would check license plates as people would come to the job site, take down the license plate, go on the database, look up who they are, get their wife's name, get their address and they would use that information to threaten the men and women who were trying to work at the job site. But this was information freely given by the DMV to the union.”
A DMV spokesman had not heard about the allegations Tuesday and said he would look into them.
On one occasion, defendant James Minter III, a union organizer, told a worker entering a work site in July 2005, “Tell Tara you're going to be a little late tonight,”' referring to the worker's wife, the indictment said. In 2006, a Local 17 picketer allegedly yelled to a Uniland Development Co. representative that he was going to sexually assault his wife, naming the street.
The practice of accessing names abruptly stopped after investigators required the DMV to conduct an audit in 2006, Flynn said.
The president of one business reluctant to sign a collective bargaining agreement with Local 17 was stabbed in the neck and had his tires slashed in December 2002, according to the indictment. A little more than a month later, defendant Carl Larson, a union organizer, tried to persuade the businessman to sign the agreement. The conversation is recounted in court documents:
“What are the positives? You guys slash my tires, stab me in the neck, try to beat me up in a bar. What are the positives to signing? There are only negatives,” the victim said.
“The positives are that the negatives you are complaining about would go away,” Larson responded.
The U.S. Department of Labor, state police and FBI have been investigating the local since 2003, and traced the criminal activity from 1997 to the present day. The threats and violence happened everywhere from the smallest house demolition to major or publicly funded projects at high-profile sites such as Ralph Wilson Stadium and Roswell Park Cancer Institute.
The investigation did not target the union as a whole, which according to its web site has 2,100 members in six western New York counties.
A woman who answered two calls at the union's headquarters in the Buffalo suburb of Lakeview Tuesday declined to comment and said no one else was available.
She did not know if a lawyer had been retained to represent union members.
“Labor racketeering strikes at the heart of western New York,” said Buffalo FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Laurie Bennett, who said the bureau has made labor corruption a priority.
The arrests at Operating Engineers Local 17 mark the third high-profile union crackdown in the area in recent years.
“At the end of the day, it cost the job sites and the developers and the workers millions of dollars in property damage, millions of dollars in lost jobs,” U.S. Attorney Terrance Flynn said.
At job sites big and small where non-Local 17 members were hired, union members caused more than $1 million in damage to more than 40 pieces of heavy machinery by pouring sand and grinding compound into the oil systems, breaking windows, destroying tires and cutting fuel lines, investigators said.
Particularly unnerving to investigators was the union's ability to run potential victims' license plates through the DMV database to obtain personal information, including their wives' names and addresses.
“It was astounding to us,” Flynn said.
The union had an account with DMV that was meant to allow it to ensure its own vehicles were properly registered and inspected, but the account was abused on several occasions, Flynn said.
“They would check license plates as people would come to the job site, take down the license plate, go on the database, look up who they are, get their wife's name, get their address and they would use that information to threaten the men and women who were trying to work at the job site. But this was information freely given by the DMV to the union.”
A DMV spokesman had not heard about the allegations Tuesday and said he would look into them.
On one occasion, defendant James Minter III, a union organizer, told a worker entering a work site in July 2005, “Tell Tara you're going to be a little late tonight,”' referring to the worker's wife, the indictment said. In 2006, a Local 17 picketer allegedly yelled to a Uniland Development Co. representative that he was going to sexually assault his wife, naming the street.
The practice of accessing names abruptly stopped after investigators required the DMV to conduct an audit in 2006, Flynn said.
The president of one business reluctant to sign a collective bargaining agreement with Local 17 was stabbed in the neck and had his tires slashed in December 2002, according to the indictment. A little more than a month later, defendant Carl Larson, a union organizer, tried to persuade the businessman to sign the agreement. The conversation is recounted in court documents:
“What are the positives? You guys slash my tires, stab me in the neck, try to beat me up in a bar. What are the positives to signing? There are only negatives,” the victim said.
“The positives are that the negatives you are complaining about would go away,” Larson responded.
The U.S. Department of Labor, state police and FBI have been investigating the local since 2003, and traced the criminal activity from 1997 to the present day. The threats and violence happened everywhere from the smallest house demolition to major or publicly funded projects at high-profile sites such as Ralph Wilson Stadium and Roswell Park Cancer Institute.
The investigation did not target the union as a whole, which according to its web site has 2,100 members in six western New York counties.
A woman who answered two calls at the union's headquarters in the Buffalo suburb of Lakeview Tuesday declined to comment and said no one else was available.
She did not know if a lawyer had been retained to represent union members.
“Labor racketeering strikes at the heart of western New York,” said Buffalo FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Laurie Bennett, who said the bureau has made labor corruption a priority.
The arrests at Operating Engineers Local 17 mark the third high-profile union crackdown in the area in recent years.
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