Former union leader linked to Chicago mob sentenced to jail
Five months after he pleaded guilty to embezzlement, a
onetime union leader with reputed mob ties told a federal judge, “The
only reason I’m standing here today is because my name is John Matassa.”
Matassa faced sentencing Monday, more than two years after being hit with a 10-count federal indictment.
He explained that he’d been targeted by the U.S. Department of Labor.
But U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly saw things differently.
“You pled guilty to a felony to avoid going to trial,”
Kennelly said. “That’s why you’re here right now. Not because your name
is John Matassa.”
Then, the judge handed Matassa a six-month prison
sentence and added six months of home confinement. The case stemmed from
Matassa’s job as the secretary-treasurer of the Independent Union of
Amalgamated Workers Local 711.
During Monday’s sentencing hearing, Kennelly described
that organization as “the weirdest union that I’ve ever seen.” He
repeatedly mentioned that it collected barely enough dues to pay
Matassa’s salary and expenses.
Matassa admitted last February to an embezzlement scheme
in which he began in 2013 to split his weekly paycheck from the union
with his wife. Prosecutors said she became the union’s highest-paid
employee — despite not actually working for it. Matassa’s attorneys said
she helped him do his job.
In 2014 and 2015, Matassa raised his wife’s salary
without the approval of the union’s president or its executive board.
Meanwhile, Matassa had applied for old-age insurance benefits from the
Social Security Administration in 2013.
Those benefits would have been reduced if he made too
much money. However, as a result of the arrangement with his wife,
Matassa collected $75,108 in insurance benefits to which he was not
entitled, according to his plea agreement.
The charges against Matassa followed a long career in
which his name notably surfaced during the 2009 trial of John Ambrose, a
deputy U.S. marshal who leaked details about mob hitman Nicholas
Calabrese.
Calabrese became a key cooperator with federal
investigators and was under the protection of the marshals. Matassa
allegedly functioned as a go-between for the information that eventually
made its way to then-imprisoned Chicago mob boss, James “Little Jimmy”
Marcello.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2019/7/22/20706262/six-months-prison-union-leader-reputed-mob-ties
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