Albert Cernadas

Feds' Mob Takedown Includes Union Crooks

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Wed, 01/26/2011 - 16:20

mobster photo There are few things quite like a mass arrest to serve as a reminder of the Mafia's continuing presence in American life. The mob roundup last Thursday morning, the largest in U.S. history, at once underscores the large dent that the Justice Department has been making in organized crime and how deeply entrenched so many organized crime operations have been. Some 800 FBI agents, U.S. marshals, state police and New York City cops fanned out and arrested nearly 120 wise guys and associates named in an 82-page, 16-count indictment for acts of murder, racketeering, money-laundering, loan-sharking, extortion and other offenses going back three decades. The takedown includes crime soldiers from each of New York's "Five Families," plus the DeCavalcante (Northern New Jersey) and Patriarca (New England) families. A number of the arrestees were heavily involved in labor corruption.

Federal Judge Throws Out RICO Suit; Questions Remain

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Mon, 11/19/2007 - 01:00

The leaders of the International Longshoremen’s Association might not have uncorked any champagne at their Lower Manhattan headquarters, but it’s unlikely they had seen happier times. On November 1, U.S. District Judge I. Leo Glasser announced his dismissal of the Justice Department’s civil racketeering suit against them. In a 109-page decision, Judge Glasser stated that the government’s complaint failed to “sufficiently specify” its rationale for applying the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act to the alleged crimes. He wrote: “This court will not abet the government’s effort to stretch the concept of a racketeering enterprise beyond all recognition in order to bring various otherwise disinterested parties within its scope, even for the worthwhile purpose of combating the influence of organized crime on the waterfront.”

Bowers Steps Down as President, No. 2 Man Hughes Takes Over

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Mon, 07/30/2007 - 00:00

For the last two years the International Longshoremen’s Association has been operating under a Justice Department civil racketeering indictment. But whether the change in leadership at New York City headquarters this month suggests the feds will drop its suit remains to be seen. As expected, John Bowers resigned on July 26 as president of the ILA at the union’s quadrennial convention in Hollywood, Fla., having held the job since 1987. Bowers, 84, had been indicating for some time that he would not seek re-election. His close ally, Richard Hughes, Jr., 74, the ILA executive vice president, takes over at the top spot, having run uncontested. Hughes’s replacement is Harold Daggett, assistant general organizer and president of the nearly 2,000-member Local 1804-1 across the river in New Jersey, long under control of the Genovese crime family. Daggett had been acquitted in November 2005 after an emotionally draining waterfront criminal trial that saw, among other things, the discovery of the dead body of missing witness Lawrence Ricci. Hughes had gotten his job in 2005 as a replacement for Albert Cernadas, who retired after pleading guilty in the case.

Dockworkers Boss in N.J. Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Mon, 09/26/2005 - 00:00

Albert Cernadas began working on the New Jersey docks more than 50 years ago. And he almost made it to the top of the International Longshoremen’s Association. As executive vice president of the New York-based union as well as longtime president of Local 1235 across the river in Newark, he was heir apparent to ILA President John Bowers. But after the Justice Department slapped him and several associates with criminal racketeering charges, there was nowhere to go but down.

Mob-Controlled Union Leadership Hit with RICO Suit

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Mon, 07/18/2005 - 00:00

The bosses who’ve been running the International Longshoremen’s Association have led a charmed life – or at least a good imitation of one. For several decades the union has had a devil’s pact with the Genovese and Gambino crime families: We’ll install your guys in key positions; you make sure nobody else walks on our turf. At the New York, New Jersey and Port of Miami waterfronts, in particular, it’s been hard to tell where organized labor and organized crime actually differ. But it’s an arrangement whose end now may be near.

Reputed Mobster Joins 3 Top Bosses as Racketeering Defendant

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Mon, 03/28/2005 - 01:00

A reputed Genovese mob captain from New Jersey has joined three top Longshoremen union bosses as a co-defendant in a federal racketeering indictment that claims the ILA is under Mafia influence, according to the Journal of Commerce. The extortion and wire-fraud charges against Lawrence Ricci are the latest development in a case scheduled to go to trial May 31 in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

Yet Another ILA Boss Indicted for Racketeering

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Mon, 10/25/2004 - 00:00

Albert Cernadas, has become the latest and highest-ranking official of the Intl. Longshoremen's Assn. to be indicted on federal racketeering charges. The ILA's exec. v.p. was indicted in Brooklyn earlier this month on charges of extortion, conspiracy, and mail and wire fraud conspiracy. The indictment expanded previous charges against Harold Daggett, the union's assistant general and president of the ILA's New York/New Jersey maintenance local, and Arthur Coffey, an ILA vice president who is the union's top official in Miami.

Cernadas is also president of the ILA Local 1235 in Newark, N.J. He and Daggett have been mentioned as potential candidates to succeed ILA President John Bowers.