Ex-Carpenters Local 608 President Pleads Guilty

Ex-Carpenters Local 608 President Pleads Guilty

  July 18, 2010    Dapper_Don

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John Greaney, the former president of Carpenters Local 608 in NYC, "pleaded guilty today as part of a cooperation deal with prosecutors and admitted sharing bribes with once-powerful labor leader Michael Forde" as reported by Bruce Golding for the New York Post:

Greaney, 50, said he took cash payoffs from four contractors to let them hire illegal aliens off-the-books and avoid making mandatory contributions to the union's benefit funds. He also admitted lying under oath to deny the scheme and obstruct a court-ordered investigation of corruption at the carpenters union District Council, where Forde served as secretary-treasurer until he was busted last year.

Greaney was among ten union officials and contractors variously indicted last August on racketeering, bribery, fraud and perjury charges, and is the seventh to plead guilty.  The three remaining defendants -- Forde, Brian Hayes and Joseph Olivieri -- are scheduled for trial in September, and Olivieri "allegedly has longstanding ties to the Genovese crime family."  Last month the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced in a press release that federal Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. "has appointed a Review Officer to oversee the operations of the Carpenters Union New York City District Council and its Benefit Funds."