IN GRIP OF MOB FIRST THE COLISEUM, THEN JAVITS CENTER
By TOM ROBBINS
Sunday, March 12th 1995

Corruption has long been a part of the New York convention scene, as inbred as nametags and hospitality suites.

And last week, when Gov. Pataki demanded the resignations of the 13 board members of the Jacob Javits Convention Center, he confronted a problem, whose solution has eluded politicians for more than a generation.

Javits is plagued by a network of organized crime influences that create sky-high prices in a highly competitive industry.

It's a network that already was in place at the old Coliseum on Columbus Circle, where mobsters were just as brazen as the gangsters swaggering into Javits .

"The Coliseum belonged to us . . . I secured many jobs for people there," mobster-turned-informant Vincent (Fish) Cafaro told the FBI almost 10 years ago.

When the Coliseum closed and Javits opened in 1986, the mob was first in the door.

Then, as now, the mob's influence stemmed from control of three key unions the Carpenters, Teamsters and Exposition Employes. Jobs at the center were considered plums. And to get one, you had to know someone.

Although the powerful Genovese crime family has exerted the most control at the center, according to authorities and mob informants, Javits is shared among several crime families.

Until he disappeared in 1987, a key Javits figure was Colombo crime family captain Jimmy Angellino.

"Angellino controlled hiring of carpenters on a day-to-day basis," Cafaro said. Today, Angellino's son operates a trade-show decorating firm at the center.

The mob's scams are simple and lucrative according to Cafaro and other informants. With control over union foreman positions, mob lieutenants are able to list employes on payroll sheets whether they work or not.

Decorating firms that hire and pay workers are caught in a vise and are faced with expensive slowdowns if they balk.

As at the Coliseum, Javits also offers vast ripe pickings for thieves. Boats, jewelry and heavy equipment are regularly stolen.

Last year, Javits Inspector General Sebastian Pipitone recaptured three motor boat engines worth $100,000 that insiders had swiped and hidden in one of the building's labyrinthine corridors.

Today, despite several prosecutions, mobsters remain so pervasive that police intelligence detectives regularly stake out the parking lots at the West Side landmark to shoot photos and take down license plate numbers.

Among those going in and out of the center's W. 34 St. employe entrance is Anthony Fiorino, the Carpenters union chief and brother-in-law of Genovese street boss Liborio (Barney) Bellomo.

The shop steward of the powerful Exposition Employes, Local 829, is another reputed Genovese associate, Steven (Beansie) Dellacava, who got his job after his release from prison on federal drug charges.

Control of the Teamsters union at the center was passed from Robert Rabbitt Sr. to his son, Michael Rabbitt, when the father pleaded guilty in 1992 to making phony payroll documents.

As a result of federal civil racketeering lawsuits charging mob influence, both the Teamsters and Carpenters unions are under court-appointed monitors.

Charles Carberry, an ex-federal prosecutor responsible for weeding mobsters out of the Teamsters, has won the removal of three alleged mobsters from Local 807, and a fourth is pending.

His investigation of the local also led to a trusteeship of the local by national Teamsters President Ron Carey.

Former federal Judge Kenneth Conboy, who monitors the New York District Council of Carpenters, has filed union corruption charges against Fiorino. A hearing is scheduled for later this month, and charges against another 10 carpenters are expected shortly.

But there is no monitor for the Exposition Employes, Local 829.

"We're too small to attract the feds," complained one rank-and-file member, who added that honest workers suffer from mob rule by being shut out of work.

Three years ago, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau won indictments against 27 members of the Teamsters and Exposition unions.

Morgenthau launched a new probe of the Exposition workers last year after Pipitone helped expose a major featherbedding scheme.

Instead of allowing mob-linked union stewards to hand out payroll checks to members, Pipitone ordered workers to provide identification and have their picture taken on payday.

The reform caused a short work stoppage and also turned up evidence indicating that more than two dozen employes had engaged in no-show jobs, sources said.

In another reform measure, city and state officials named Fordham Law School Dean John Feerick as Javits labor arbitrator.

Feerick said his rulings have ended the practice of paying workers for unnecessary weekend and lunch shifts.

But he adds that his arbitrators, available to either labor or management, are not used as much as they could be. "This mechanism could be more actively utilized," said Feerick.

Javits officials have long complained that their control over the work force is limited, since most workers are employed by decorating firms hired by exhibitors.

"The Javits management has nothing to do with negotiating for labor charges," said former center president Fabian Palomino. "Those prices are negotiated on behalf of the show managers."

Palomino, a close friend and adviser to former Gov. Mario Cuomo, said charges that he had failed to press the unions for changes because he didn't want to lose their political support were "damaging and misleading."

But in a pre-election event in October, Palomino and Cuomo went to the offices of the New York District Council of Carpenters to join union chief Fred Devine in a celebration of a new contract between Carpenters and decorating firms at the center.

Palomino characterized the agreement as an additional reform that increased Carpenters' working hours and reduced overtime pay from double time to time and a half.

Conboy, however, contends the deal allowed Fiorino to dole out cushy work to a small group of union insiders. And a federal civil racketeering lawsuit against the Carpenters described union president Devine as close to several top mobsters.

"I wouldn't know about that," said Palomino.

Ex-Mayor Ed Koch said that he urged Cuomo when Javits was due to open to avoid future labor problems by making workers at the center civil servants.

The idea "still holds merit," Koch said last week. "I do remember very vividly that Mario wanted this to be a private sector operation and wouldn't accept my suggestion," said Koch.

Cuomo said he didn't recall the conversation. "It must have been the first time Ed ever said something should be Civil Service," he said. "Conservatives want privatization."