10 Indicted in Carpenters Union Corruption Investigation
A grand jury last week indicted New York City’s carpenters union chief and nine other members and contractors following a sweeping investigation that resulted in allegations of fraud, racketeering and accepting bribes.
Michael Forde, executive secretary-treasurer of the district council of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, and other key union officials are accused of helping individual contractors – which are not named in the 29-count indictment – steal “millions of dollars” from union benefit funds by allowing them to pay union member cash below union rates without benefits, employ undocumented and non-union workers and forgo contributions to the union’s benefit funds, a violation of the union’s collective bargaining agreement. In exchange for looking the other way, Forde and eight others – John Greaney, business manager and president of Local 608, the largest local in the district council; Local 608 officer Brian Hayes; shop stewards Michael Brennan, Brian Carson, Joseph Fuocco, John Stamberger and Michael Vivenzio; Joseph Olivieri, executive director of the Association of Wall, Ceiling and Carpentry Industries of New York – allegedly accepted bribes valued at approximately $1 million. Another man, contractor Finbar O’Neill, is accused of helping to deliver the illegal payments.