Secret den of vice at union's HQ: Raid turns up stun gun & drug stash
Federal agents probing corruption in the city's most powerful construction union seized drugs and an illegal stun gun at the group's Manhattan headquarters, the Daily News has learned.
The discovery at the District Council of Carpenters building came after the indictment of council chief Michael Forde and nine others - including two mob associates - in a $1 million bribery scheme.
Federal agents seized the drugs, said to include quantities of the highly addictive prescription painkiller OxyContin, and a stun gun while executing a search warrant Sept. 24, a union spokesman confirmed.
The illicit stash was hidden at the Labor and Technical College, a vast basement workshop at the council's 395 Hudson St. headquarters where apprentices are trained, union sources told The News.
No one was arrested.
Forde, long rumored to have thrown drug-fueled parties in the building, tested positive for cocaine and marijuana when he was arrested in August.
Seven of his nine co-defendants also tested positive for drugs. Two refused to be tested, prosecutors said.
In recent weeks, five more district council employees have been fired or suspended for failing drug tests ordered by Frank Spencer, the emergency supervisor of the International Brotherhood of Carpenters named to supervise the council.
A union leader alerted the feds to the OxyContin cache after learning of it from a council worker who failed a drug test, the spokesman said.
An Internet blog run by dissident union members said U.S. Labor Department agents removed the drugs from a compartment behind a wall.
Forde, free on $75,000 bond, was ordered to undergo 28 days of drug rehab.
The feds have been monitoring the district council, which is made up of 11 union locals, since 1994 under a decree in another racketeering case.
That has not diminished its political clout.
Since Forde took office 10years ago, the group has lavished at least $3 million on politicians and handed out eagerly sought endorsements to Hillary Clinton, Mayor Bloomberg and others.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/10/05/2009-10-05_secret_den_of_vice.html#ixzz0T6pFBhYK
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