Feds seize Culinary local in N.J.

Amy Westfeldt

Thursday, April 18, 2002 | 9:17 a.m.

NEWARK, N.J. -- A judge appointed a monitor to run a union of hotel and restaurant employees Wednesday after prosecutors charged the local had long been linked to organized crime.

Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union Local 69 had been put into trusteeship last month by its international union and its officers were removed.

The international union is known in Las Vegas as the Culinary Union and represents casino workers in Southern Nevada. The international spent years under a court monitor until 2000 and had at least nine officers around the country removed. But it has largely rid itself of mob influence, President John Wilhelm said.

"That's why I'm so upset about Local 69," Wilhelm said. "The international union and all of its locals have left these kinds of problems behind. We're not going to permit anyone to go back to those kinds of practices."

Washington attorney Kurt Muellenberg, the same attorney who monitored the international union, will oversee Local 69 in Secaucus for at least four years, U.S. District Judge Garrett E. Brown Jr. said. The 4,000-member local primarily represents catering and food service workers at the Meadowlands sports complex in East Rutherford.

Brown entered into a consent decree agreed to by both parties after prosecutors filed a civil complaint accusing union officials of racketeering, embezzling funds from the union and its pension and welfare accounts, and using intimidation and violence to extort money from employers.

"For over 15 years, members and associates of the Genovese crime family of La Cosa Nostra have exercised influence over Local 69," the complaint read.

HEREIU, the nation's largest union of hotel and restaurant workers, claimed in March that the local paid more than $542,000 in severance to John Agathos and John Agathos Jr., the former president and the health and pension fund administrator of the local ousted in 1996 by Muellenberg.

The union also charged the local failed to account for about $300,000 in food, beverage and other expenses for union activities and received an illegal $5,282 loan from a business to buy 76 tickets to a Bruce Springsteen concert in 1999.

Under the decree, Muellenberg will have power to remove Local 69 members or officials, approve disbursements of assets and take action on collective bargaining agreements.

Calls seeking comment from the Secaucus local Wednesday were referred to Wilhelm.