Prosecution in Mob Trial Seeks to Link Mafia, Teamster Chief

NEW YORK —  The government on Tuesday began prosecution of convicted Mafia boss Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno and 10 associates on new charges of business and labor corruption, including charges that Salerno controlled the 1983 election of Jackie Presser as Teamsters Union president.

The Teamster chief himself, along with two associates, is facing trial in Cleveland next August on federal charges that he illegally siphoned off more than $700,000 over 10 years from the Teamsters and the Bakery Workers Unions in a payroll-padding scheme. Before that, however, he may be called as a witness in the New York proceedings.

Federal prosecutors told jurors they would present evidence that Salerno, as head of the powerful Genovese organized crime family, engineered Presser’s first election four years ago, as well as that of his predecessor, Roy L. Williams, in 1981.

Cites Union Infiltration

“The defendants infiltrated the largest labor union in the world. They committed fraud on the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Alan Cohen.

Mark R. Hellerer, Cohen’s associate prosecutor, said that by controlling the highest officers of the Teamsters, the Mafia hierarchy was able to get friends appointed to head local unions and gain a foothold in the interstate trucking business and the New York building construction and food industries.

Hellerer told jurors that Salerno wanted Presser to succeed Williams because “Presser could be controlled by Maishe Rockman,” a top Cleveland mobster who was convicted last year in a casino-skimming case. Rockman is a co-defendant with Salerno.

Williams, who is in failing health, is serving a reduced 10-year sentence at the federal prison hospital in Springfield, Mo., for his 1982 conviction on charges he tried to bribe former Sen. Howard W. Cannon (D-Nev.). Cannon was not accused of wrongdoing.

Gave Loyalty ‘to Mafia’

“Rank-and-file union members had little or no influence over who was going to be Teamster president,” Hellerer charged. “As a result, the Teamster president did not give his undivided loyalty to those members. He gave it to the Mafia.”

Presser, shortly after his indictment last May in the payroll padding case, was reelected overwhelmingly to another term as president by Teamster delegates at the national convention in Las Vegas.

Statements by Underboss

Much of the new case against Salerno, who was convicted last year and drew a 100-year jail sentence for running the Mafia’s national “commission,” is based on sworn statements by Angelo A. Lonardo, a former Cleveland underboss and Rockman’s brother-in-law. Lonardo bargained for leniency and began cooperating with the FBI after receiving a life sentence as a drug trafficker. He helped convict Rockman and four others in the casino trial 15 months ago.

John Jacobs, Salerno’s defense attorney, heaped scorn on Lonardo Tuesday, telling the jury that all government informants in the upcoming trial were liars who hoped to gain release from prison.

Jury to Hear Secret Tapes

But Cohen and Hellerer said that in the coming weeks, jurors would also hear secret FBI tapes of Salerno and his associates discussing plans to control the Teamsters as well as infiltrating the New York concrete-supply business and rigging snack-food contracts at Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo.

In one taped conversation, Hellerer said, defendant John (Peanuts) Tronolone is heard telling Salerno: “You are going to make the choice of who is going to be secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters.”

“That is the second most important position in the union,” Hellerer said.

Vincent (Fish) Cafaro, a Salerno lieutenant who originally was included in last year’s indictment, also has agreed to testify about the alleged conspiracy, Hellerer said.