Unyielding
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Overpaid
Neer-do-wells
Posted on 01/10/2006 8:46:38 AM PST by pabianice
Grocery chain bilked for $1.56 million
A union official extracted more than $1 million from the parent company of the former Victory Super Markets over 14 years, falsely promising that the union would not organize the Leominster-based supermarket chain’s employees, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Joseph DiFlumera, a Milford native who worked his way through the United Food and Commercial Workers union to the position of assistant to the president of the international union, was sentenced last month to 46 months in federal prison. The 71-year-old is scheduled on Jan. 17 to begin serving the sentence imposed by Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton in U.S. District Court in Boston.
Victory Super Markets was bought by the Maine-based Hannaford Bros. chain in 2004, a year after the government learned of Mr. DiFlumera’s scheme.
Mr. DiFlumera was charged with Hobbs Act extortion in which he received $1.56 million from Victory with the company’s consent, “which consent had been induced through the wrongful use of actual and threatened force, violence and fear, including fear of economic harm;” four counts of interstate travel in aid of racketeering; five counts of mail fraud by falsely stating “that he could and would influence” the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and UFCW Local 1445, based in Dedham, so that the labor unions would not seek to organize Victory’s workers; and wire fraud.
The government and Mr. DiFlumera’s lawyer, Paul V. Kelly of Kelly, Libby & Hoopes in Boston, reached a plea bargain in which the extortion and interstate travel charges were dropped and Mr. DiFlumera pleaded guilty to the mail and wire fraud charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura J. Kaplan told Judge Gorton that the scheme against Victory came to an end after several people who were closely associated with a nonunion supermarket chain told the government about it in June 2003. The officials said that Mr. DiFlumera “had engaged them in a scheme whereby they had made payments on behalf of their company to DiFlumera to avoid union organization of their company by Local 1445 and the UFCW,” she said.
Mr. DiFlumera admitted these facts outlined by Ms. Kaplan, chief of U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan’s Violent and Organized Crime Section: At the initial meeting in a scheme that lasted at least 14 years, Mr. DiFlumera told officials of Victory that he was special assistant to the UFCW international director of organizing.
The defendant told the company officials they could “buy” an insurance policy to “come under the umbrella” and be protected from union organizing. The premium that he demanded was cash payments to him that would be turned over to the union.
During that meeting and subsequent meetings over the years, Mr. DiFlumera “repeatedly advised these individuals that the monies paid to him were handed over to the president of Local 1445 and the UFCW. The defendant insisted that if these monies were not paid by the company the company would suffer extreme economic harm.”
Between 1989 and September 2003, Victory paid Mr. DiFlumera more than $1 million to keep from being organized by the union. Payments were made twice a year and grew as the company grew. Prior to Mr. DiFlumera’s arrest, Victory had 20 stores and was paying $5,000 per store twice a year, or $200,000 a year.
“For years, shortly after the company would pay the defendant, a dinner meeting would be held between the witnesses, the defendant and the president of Local 1445,” the prosecutor told the judge, saying the witnesses were officers of the company.
She said that even after Mr. DiFlumera retired from UFCW he demanded, beginning around 1996, that the company pay him a monthly consulting fee. For the two years prior to his arrest, that was $10,000 a month. Company officials and others said that he provided no legitimate consulting services.
Neither Victory Super Market nor its officers have been charged in connection with the payments. The company’s lawyer, Denis King of Goulston & Storrs, did not return several calls seeking comment.
Mr. Kelly, the defense lawyer, said he believes the government “chose to immunize one side to prosecute the other side, which is not uncommon.” He said Mr. DiFlumera objects to any suggestion that force or violence was involved in extracting payments from Victory.
The lawyer said that “these people were close friends. They worked together for over a decade.”
Mr. Kelly said there is no evidence that Mr. DiFlumera did anything to stop the union from organizing Victory. Referring to the Victory chief executive officer, Mr. Kelly said, “Obviously, (Arthur P. DiGeronimo Jr.) believed that he (Mr. DiFlumera) was influential in stopping the union, and he allowed Mr. DiGeronimo to continue believing that and he accepted his monies.”
“He made a serious error in judgment. He’s admitted his guilt and he’s prepared to accept the punishment.”
Mr. Kelly, who submitted evidence that Mr. DiFlumera gambled up to $200,000 in a weekend, said his client did not share the proceeds with other union officials. Whatever he got, he blew at Foxwoods Resort Casino, Atlantic City and Las Vegas, Mr. Kelly said.
Douglas Dority was international president of the 1.4 million-member UFCW from 1995 to February 2004 and was international organizing director before that, and Mr. DiFlumera worked for him for a short time. Mr. Dority told the Telegram & Gazette last week that he never received money from Mr. DiFlumera.
Referring to the scheme to which Mr. DiFlumera pleaded guilty, Mr. Dority said, “I find it hard to believe he would do something like that. He was never a high enough (official) to influence anything. Our assistants assisted and did things they were told to do.”
Mr. Dority said, “Joe had a certain amount of (expletive) about him, but I never thought anything like that. I always considered Joe DiFlumera a friend of mine.”
An officer of Local 1445 said he does not know who the president was at the time and said he would not give out that information.
Another official, Douglas A. Belanger, an organizer for Local 1445 since 1989 and director of organizing since 1991, said that he never heard of any scheme to accept Victory’s money in exchange for not organizing its workers and “I’ve had the full support of the local leadership in the organizing endeavor.
“They (Victory Super Markets) have always been a hot target of ours. We have had a number of serious attempts to organize” Victory. The attempts have been “almost annually,” Mr. Belanger said, adding, “anytime the workers of Victory are ready to gain a voice at work and organize, just give us a call, and we’ll be around.”
The cast of supporters who supplied character references for Mr. DiFlumera to Judge Gorton before sentencing was nearly as remarkable as the scheme in which the government alleged Mr. DiFlumera charged the supermarket large amounts of money not to be organized by UFCW, even years after Mr. DiFlumera retired from the union.
Mr. DiFlumera, a 5-foot-6-inch gambler weighing about 300 pounds, introduced letters on his behalf from a retired Central Intelligence Agency official and from former federal agents who nabbed him in a nationwide money-laundering scheme some eight years ago. He also included a letter from a police officer who owns a lawn and garden service, saying that Mr. DiFlumera was a loyal customer who always paid his account ahead of time; from a priest; and from former police officers and others who told of Mr. DiFlumera’s charitable deeds, delivering food baskets to the needy and caring for residents of assisted living facilities and nursing homes.
There also was a letter of support from Scott L. Macey, president of Springfield-based UFCW Local 1459, a position that Mr. DiFlumera held from 1959 through 1976.
BS meter just pegged, may need factory service.
Death-to-unions bump.
Protection racket alert!!!!
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