Genovese mobster sent emails from prison in attempt to get union carpenters back under mob's control
A top Mafia operative used his email access from federal prison in an attempt get union carpenters - the city's biggest trade group - back under the mob's thumb, a new report reveals.
Joseph Olivieri, the Genovese crime family's liaison to the city's trade unions, was sentenced to 18 months in June 2011 for lying about mob infestation of the 20,000-member District Council of Carpenters.
In a report released Monday, Dennis Walsh, a court-appointed monitor overseeing the cleanup of the long-troubled union, found that Olivieri didn't let prison slow him down.
Walsh subpoenaed months of Olivieri's emails from the minimum-security prison camp at Fort Dix, where Olivieri regularly communicated by email with lawyer Angelo Bisceglie in an effort to funnel union carpenters into a new, mob-controlled union.
The Bureau of Prisons says inmates do not have direct access to the Internet but communicate electronically to the outside world by submitting messages to prison officials for review.
Officials must approve of the inmate's contacts, and the text is perused to make sure it's not a threat to security or part of a continuing criminal conspiracy.
Citing privacy laws, BOP spokesman Chris Burke declined to comment on Olivieri's case.
Walsh alleges that from prison, Olivieri has tried to choreograph a mob comeback in the construction trades in New York.
Walsh says several mob-tainted leaders he'd kicked out of the District Council formed a new union called the Amalgamated Carpenters "to facilitate the restoration of the Genovese family's control of the industries currently served by the District Council."
Walsh charged that Olivieri's emails "illustrate Mr. Olivieri's deep involvement in, and control over, the Amalgamated union from inside a federal prison."
Shortly before Christmas, Olivieri coached lawyer Bisceglie - onetime president of Amalgamated - on how to run a meeting of the new union's leaders at Leonard's of Great Neck.
"Good luck tonight stay focused," he wrote.
The day after the meeting at Leonard's, Olivieri wrote, "HEARD U (sic) HAD VERY INTERESTING EVENING, REALLY ROCKIN (sic) BOAT, PANIC IS SETTING IN."
Bisceglie told the Daily News the allegations of mob ties are "B.S." adding, "Joe Olivieri is an expert in the area of construction labor relations. Other than the fact that he was convicted of perjury, he did an outstanding job for the drywall association."
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