New York union leaders charged with organized crime links
James Cahill, an American union leader arrested for bribery in October, had extensive organized crime ties, including the famous Gambino family, the Westies, an Irish gang that once operated in Manhattan. and Group America, a Serb drug trafficking gang, said, prosecutors.
Along with ten others, Cahill, president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents more than 200,000 unionized construction workers, was charged with extortion and fraud in October.
The federal prosecutor said he took bribes to act in the interests of employers and betrayed his constituents as a union leader. Rather than protecting the interests of unionized workers, he would be overlooking developers who use non-unionized workers for as long as they paid him a heavy fee.
He was detained with electronic surveillance but asked for the measures to be eased.
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The prosecution asked for it Court on Monday to reject his motion: “The evidence of his guilt is overwhelming,” they argued in a letter. “In addition, the accused has extensive relationships with organized crime members, which is more than sufficient to justify the current limitations of liability to protect the public and the safety of potential witnesses in the case,” they wrote The Sicilian American Mafia as La Cosa Nostra, the Westies, and Group America, the Serbian drug trafficking gang documented by KRIK and OCCRP in a 2020 investigation.
Cahill met several times with Louis Filippelli, a capo from the Gambino family, and Mileta Miljanic. the leader of Group America, whom he described in a bugged phone call as “my husband” and part of a “mass murder crew”.
Media in New York noted that Cahill was also friends with Governor Andrew Cuomo, previously quoted as saying that Cahill was “a good friend to me and all of my family.”
According to NBC New York, Cahill’s attorney denied the new allegations, and Cuomo’s office called them “ugly, disturbing and a slap in the face for the working men and women who are part of the union movement.”
OCCRP / TechConflict.Com