NewJerseyConstructionBoss,FiveOthersPleadGuiltytoFleecingLaborers...

NewJerseyConstructionBoss,FiveOthersPleadGuiltytoFleecingLaborers... The gleaming twin residential towers known as "77 Hudson Street" in Jersey City, N. The focal point here was a New York City-based subcontractor, Broadway Concrete, also known as 160 Broadway Concrete Corp. , and its project manager, Anselmo Genovese A reputed associate of the Gambino crime family, Genovese organized scams that enabled his company to reduce wage/salary and benefit payments required by existing collective bargaining agreements and to steal from the would-be payments. Prosecutors charged that Genovese, now 44, a resident of Staten Island, N. Rocco Mazzaferro and Vincenzo Genovese pleaded guilty last November 22; Anselmo Genovese and Eric Haynberg did likewise on December 16; as well as Zinnas followed suit on December 20. It should be added that reprehensible as the under-the-table sweetheart payments were, they were enabled by union shop rules. New Jersey is a non-Right to Work state; that is, a state in which union dues payments are compulsory for construction workers who seek to remain employed in trades with an active collective bargaining agreement. There were other pieces to the puzzle. Pasquale Zinna, a project superintendent for Broadway Concrete at the Hudson Street project, with the help of Haynberg, provided a no-show job to Zinna's wife, Janeen Zinna, who received approximately $477,000 in salary and benefits. The Zinnas, each now age 43, residents of Hackettstown, N. But as the evidence of wrongdoing became clear, each eventually copped a plea. One of his co-conspirators was Eric Haynberg, 45, a resident of Manhattan and a timekeeper for Broadway Concrete at the Hudson Street site. U. The defendants surrendered to authorities in March 2011 and appeared in Newark federal court that month. Haynberg concealed the fraud by logging Vincenzo Genovese's hours next to Mazzaferro's name. What piqued the attention of federal investigators, and eventually led to two indictments totaling 33 counts in March 2011, however, was what happened prior to the opening: a series of sweetheart deals during construction. Genovese would have help. Haynberg provided a no-show job for Rocco Mazzaferro, 64, a Brooklyn resident who collected more than $143,000 in wages and benefits at the expense of Cement Masons Local 780. The person who did show up was Vincenzo Genovese, an uncle of Anselmo Genovese. The elder Genovese, now 75, a retired mason and pensioner from Staten Island, assumed Mazzaferro's name and worked part-time for a full-timepaycheck and benefits. Count One for example, read in part: From on or about September 25, 2007 through on or about July 29, 2008, in the District of New Jersey and elsewhere, the defendants. did knowingly and intentionally conspire and agree to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud, and to obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises, and for the purpose of executing such scheme and artifice to cause to be transmitted by wire communications in interstate commerce, writings, signals, pictures and sounds. 7 million and embezzled a sizable sum of that money. , is an urban landmark made possible by a lot of hard work. Unfortunately, not everyone who was paid to build it actually worked. And not everyone who did work was on the schedule. During last November and December, six persons, including a reputed mob associate, pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to fraud and other offenses committed during 2006-08 that deprived Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 325 and Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons International Association Local 780 of nearly $2. 25 million in wages/salary and benefits. It all added up to a conspiracy. He paid this individual, indicated in court papers only as "L. Since its 2010 grand opening, 77 Hudson Street, formally known as the Hudson Greene has been a prestige address in Jersey City. Located one block from the riverfront, the Hovnanian Enterprises development's two 48-story buildings, one condo and also the other rental, provide an array of amenities, including a spectacular peruse of the Manhattan skyline. NewJerseyConstructionBoss,FiveOthersPleadGuiltytoFleecingLaborers... Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 03/03/2012