Trustees Hire New Counsel To Investigate Financially Troubled Funds

Raymond McGuire

More than a year after its parent union placed the New York City District Council of Carpenters under supervision because its leader was charged with racketeering, the health of the Benefit Funds are in "dire,dire financial trouble" and it is "very possible that the funds will in fact collapse within ten years,” according UBC attorney Kenneth Conboy, revealed in court proceedings on February 8th related to the Bilello motion, for council elections.

The Funds provides life insurance, hospitalization, medical care, pension and vacation benefits to union members.

Conboy also informed Judge Richard Berman, that District Council Benefit Fund trustees have agreed upon new counsel for the Benefit Funds, Raymond McGuire, of the law firm KM & M. McGuire is a very distinguished Harvard Law School graduate labor lawyer in New York.

According to Conboys assessment, the fundamental difficulty with the funds is that a "large number of contractors appear to have been given waivers" by the corrupt Forde administration, allowing them to evade contributions to the fund.

Mr. McGuire responsibilities among other things, will be to do a " thorough investigation of the of the financial condition of the funds and a retrospective inquiry as to what money is owed, who owes it, and how can it be collected." This challenge will involve undoubtedly bringing lawsuits against those contractors who had legal obligations to contribute to the fund and did not. Mr. McGuire will also make recommendations for a "completely reformed internal administrative engine to deal with this in a responsible way or, very possibly, independent third party administration of the fund."

On February 7, Michael Forde, 56, the former corrupt executive secretary-treasurer and fund trustee of the New York City District Council of Carpenters surrendered to the Federal Correctional Institution, McDowell to serve his 11-year prison term.

Forde pleaded guilty to racketeering, bribery and perjury in late July in connection with taking as much as $1 million in illegal contractor bribes and skimming many millions more from union benefit funds. The Justice Department uncovered the scheme as part of a probe that netted guilty pleas from eight persons and the jury conviction of Genovese crime family-linked contractor Joseph Olivieri. In addition to serving time, Forde must forfeit $100,000 in cash, pay a $50,000 fine, and pay restitution of about $4.5 million.

Oliveri is the former executive director of the Association of Wall, Ceiling, and Carpentry Industries of New York and a former trustee of the benefit funds. According to the evidence presented at trial, Olivieri lied under oath about his ties to the Genovese Organized Crime Family, as well as his ties to a union contractor that was defrauding the Carpenters Union benefit funds while Olivieri was a trustee.

Dennis M. Walsh, a court-appointed Review Officer, issued a 71-page report in June on the New York City District Council of Carpenters, according to the report, the council remains influenced by the mob and is still a source of cash and illicit benefits for a select few.

 “My office has deep historical knowledge and is developing current information about actual and attempted influence of organized crime over the affairs of the district council and the funds,” the review officer, Dennis M. Walsh, wrote in the report. “We have developed sufficient information to reasonably suspect that there are certain district council employees who have been and are currently under the influence of La Cosa Nostra figures.”

The report said individuals involved in running some of the local unions were under scrutiny for similar ties, something Mr. Walsh said was “a matter of grave import” and under "zealous investigation."