The Mob and the ILA

Oh, here we go again.

From the Journal of Commerce

Mob figure accused of ILA extortion

Updated November 4, 2008 12:19:09 PM

Seriously, when I made my posting yesterday "Tony Soprano would be mad", I did not know about this indictment.

Honest.

And, the article from yesterday was concerning the local in Bayonne, NJ. This new one is regarding the local in Newark, NJ.

NEWARK, N.J. -- A Mafia figure in prison for avoiding prosecution in a 1977 mob murder has been charged in a federal indictment that accuses him of extortion and conspiracy to extort members of International Longshoremen's Association Local 1235 in Newark, N.J.

Prosecutors said that three days before his arrest, Coppola was intercepted in a telephone conversation admitting organized-crime control over the leadership of Local 1235, one of the ILA's largest units, since the Seventies. The U.S. attorney's office said that during the call, Eddie Aulisi, son of the local's then-president, Vincent Aulisi, told Coppola that tribute payments to the Genovese family had recently "almost doubled."

I had always wondered what happened after this murder (mentioned below). From what I recall, the trial basically just stopped. I am pretty sure everyone who was scheduled to testify, suddenly decided not to, or, their memory went fuzzy.

In a detention memo filed with the court after Coppola's arrest last year, prosecutors alleged that Coppola and his stepson were involved in the murder of Larry Ricci, a mobster who disappeared in the middle of a 2005 ILA racketeering trial where he was a defendant along with three of the union's top leaders.

Ricci was found shot to death in a car trunk outside a Union, N.J., diner shortly after he and two of his co-defendants, ILA officials Harold Daggett and Arthur Coffey, were acquitted of racketeering charges. No charges have been filed in that murder.

I'm pretty sure I know where that diner is located. Don't think I'll be going there again.