ILA official sentenced to prison for role in “tribute” scheme

New Jersey Attorney General cites the work of the NY/NJ Waterfront Commission as a bill to dissolve it sits on the Governor’s desk.    A former top official of the International Longshoremen’s Association was sentenced on Friday to prison on charges resulting from an investigation into a scheme to extort money from dock workers by demanding “tribute” for better jobs and wages, said John J. Hoffman, acting Attorney General for New Jersey.
   Nunzio LaGrasso, 64, of Florham Park – the former secretary-treasurer of ILA Local 1478 and former vice president of the Atlantic Coast District of all ILA locals – was sentenced to six years in state prison by Superior Court Judge Robert J. Gilson in Morris County. He pleaded guilty on Jan. 23 to a second-degree charge of conspiracy to commit commercial bribery and money laundering.
   “This union official sold out the hardworking union members he was supposed to serve, extorting money from them in a criminal tribute scheme that belongs in an old Hollywood movie, but certainly not on the modern-day docks of our port,” said Hoffman.
   A second defendant was sentenced last month, and a third is awaiting sentencing.
   The three men were indicted in 2011 in “Operation Terminal,” an investigation by the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice and the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor into the activities of a criminal enterprise that exercised control and corrupt influence over International Longshoremen’s Association locals operating shipping terminals at the Port of New York and New Jersey.
   In a statement on the sentencing, Hoffman said New Jersey would “continue to work with the Waterfront Commission and our federal partners to maintain vigilance and eliminate organized crime on the waterfront.”
   Ironically, a bill calling for the New Jersey to withdraw from compact establishing Waterfront Commission, dissolve the compact and Commission, and transfer the Commission’s New Jersey operations to the New Jersey State Police has been passed unanimously by both the New Jersey Assembly and Senate and is before Governor Chris Christie. He has until May 4 to act on the legislation, according to the New Jersey Legislative Services office. The Waterfront Commission says it believes the legislation is unconstitutional.
   A co-defendant, Rocco Ferrandino, 73, of Lakewood, who was a timekeeper at Maher Terminal in Port Newark/Elizabeth, was sentenced on March 6 to three years in state prison, after pleading guilty to second-degree conspiracy to commit commercial bribery and money laundering.
   LaGrasso’s nephew, Alan Marfia, 43, of Kenilworth, a former Newark police officer, pleaded guilty on Jan. 23 to third-degree conspiracy to commit computer theft for using police databases to obtain information for LaGrasso about undercover police vehicles that were conducting surveillance near his union office. He is awaiting sentencing. The state will recommend that Marfia be sentenced to three years in prison, but he has already been permanently barred from law enforcement and any form of public employment as a result of the plea.
   The Attorney General’s office said of the case, “The investigation into the criminal enterprise at the New Jersey waterfront revealed that ILA members working at the shipping terminals were required to make a cash ‘tribute’ payment at Christmas time each year to the enterprise out of the year-end bonuses each ILA member receives called ‘container royalty checks.’
   “Those payments were funneled to the criminal enterprise through LaGrasso,” the office continued. “Union members were required to make the payments in order to receive high-paying jobs, preferred shift assignments and overtime, all as determined under the influence of the criminal enterprise. Each of the thousands of union members were required to make a payment that typically ranged from a couple of hundred dollars to a couple of thousand dollars, depending on the size of the container royalty check. LaGrasso collected some tribute payments directly, but usually relied on accomplices such as Ferrandino to collect them.”
   LaGrasso was sentenced on April 15 to 28 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to a charge of racketeering conspiracy filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey in connection with his illegal activities. Ferrandino was sentenced on March 16 to eight months in federal prison and four months of house arrest after pleading guilty to a federal conspiracy charge related to such activities.