Port Newark as seen from Bayonne. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

By Ted Sherman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The Huck Finn on Morris Avenue in Union is an unremarkable, typical Jersey diner, where the usual three-egg omelets and burgers share the menu with Greek salads, tuna sandwiches and, of course, meatloaf.

But it has a more notorious claim to fame. In November 2005, authorities made a gruesome discovery in the trunk of a silver Acura that had sat undisturbed for weeks in the back of the diner’s big parking lot.

Alerted by a foul odor and the swarming of flies around the car, police found the decomposing body of Lawrence Ricci—an alleged Genovese crime family capo with hooks into the waterfront, who had disappeared weeks earlier in the midst of his own racketeering trial.

Face down with a grey sweatshirt over his head, somebody had put a bullet in his brain.

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Lawrence Ricci (Star-Ledger file photo)

Connections with organized crime

The death of Ricci marked the last known mob hit tied to the waterfront, say investigators, and the murder has never been solved.

But more than a decade later, law enforcement officials say organized crime still stalks the docks.

Since January 2017, records show at least 10 dockworkers have had their registrations revoked, or had their applications denied by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor because of friendships or associations with those deemed to have organized crime connections.

Another four applications for registration were withdrawn or surrendered without an administrative hearing, and one individual seeking a restoration of his registration was denied.

Among those cases included a $350,000-a-year longshoreman barred over his alleged friendship with an admitted loan shark who authorities say was connected to a Colombo crime family bribery scheme involving debris removal from the World Trade Center site.

Just last month, another longshoreman who supervised the delivery and maintenance of refrigerated containers was banned from the port by the Waterfront Commission, citing his alleged ties to Pasquale “Patty” Falcetti, Sr., a reputed member of the Genovese crime family.

Falcetti was convicted of defrauding the employee pension and welfare fund for longshoremen, noted the commission, which also concluded that the banned supervisor had a friendship with Andrew Gigante, the son of the late crime boss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante.

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Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan's 1954 film On the Waterfront. (Columbia Pictures | AP file photo)

The influence remains

The movie classic On the Waterfront told a story of crime and corruption on the docks of New York and New Jersey. It followed a series of Pulitzer Prize winning stories by reporter Malcolm Johnson in The New York Sun that exposed the racketeering and violence endemic on the piers, and led to major reforms aimed at ridding the port of mob influence.

More than 60 years later, Jan Gilhooly, a former special agent in charge of the Secret Service in New Jersey who served on the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, said the mob's influence remains, despite a litany of criminal cases in recent years.

“The port is a perfect setting for organized crime and it always has been,” said Gilhooly. “There’s so much money involved.”

He added the influence remains even after prosecutors make arrests.

“That’s the way organized crime works. One part goes away, and another tentacle takes its place,” he said.

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A man identified by law enforcement officials as Stephen Depiro leaves the federal courthouse in Newark in 2011, after at least 15 people were arrested in New Jersey in connection with a waterfront corruption scheme involving the collection of "Christmas tribute" money exacted from dockworkers. (Star-Ledger file photo)

Kickbacks and racketeering

According to court filings, Ricci had reported to the late New Jersey mobster Tino Fiumara, a feared Genovese member with a ruthless reputation, who had long controlled the rackets on the waterfront. After Ricci turned up dead, he was replaced by Stephen Depiro, said the FBI in a 2010 affidavit.

The affidavit said Depiro "took over handling for Fiumara and the Genovese crime family extortion payments at Christmas from port union members, loansharking at the ports, illegal gambling at the ports, kickbacks for giving union-related jobs to individuals, and kickbacks from vendors for favorable treatment by port unions."

Depiro ultimately pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges for his role in a decades-long scheme to extort Christmastime tribute payments from ILA members. He was charged with taking a cut out of the annual year-end bonuses longshoremen receive based on the number of containers moved through the Port of New York and New Jersey, and sentenced in 2015 to three years in prison.

But his arrest and conviction did not represent a knockout blow to the mob on the waterfront, said former U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, whose office prosecuted Depiro and two others tied to the shakedown scheme.

“You always hope that every case makes an incremental improvement, but guys like that don’t get wiped out in a day,” said Fishman, who said he believes organized crime still wields “considerable influence” at the port.

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Nighttime on the waterfront. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Whack-a-Mole...

A similar assessment came from Robert Stewart, former head of the federal Organized Crime Strike Force in New Jersey, who traces the entrenchment of organized crime at the port to the 1940s, first with the Irish gangs and then with the Mafia.

The operations at the port are less violent, and far more lucrative, and it has only gotten more sophisticated, he said.

“You’re not seeing anything. There’s no bodies. But that suggests a higher level of ability to work,” observed Stewart.

"You're not seeing anything. There's no bodies..."

— Robert Stewart, former head of the Organized Crime Strike Force in N.J.

Tossing down a series of dossiers one-by-one onto a table as he read the names of close relatives of known organized crime figures with high-paying port jobs, Walter Arsenault, the executive director of the Waterfront Commission, asserted that “the mob is very much a presence at the port.”

At a hearing before a New York legislative committee in June, Arsenault volunteered a 15-page list of ‘made’ men from the seven Mafia families in New York and New Jersey, who he said all had relatives at the port. “You can't throw a stone at the port without hitting the son, the daughter, the son-in-law, the nephew, the cousin, the godson of a ‘made’ guy,” he told the committee.

Whenever someone is removed for having mob ties, he complained the spot is immediately filled by another family member. “It’s like Whack-a-Mole,” he said, the arcade game that players seldom beat.

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Cranes loom over a container ship docked at the Port Newark Container Terminal. (Julio Cortez | AP file photo)

The union speaks out

Officials with the International Longshoremen’s Association maintain that the mob no longer has any influence on the waterfront, and have repeatedly attacked the Waterfront Commission over its enforcement efforts.

"The waterfront today relies on highly skilled craftspeople operating highly expensive dangerous machinery. The over-regulation of the piers has resulted in the destruction of shipping in Bayonne and in Staten Island. Those jobs are gone. They have moved to other ports and Canada," said ILA spokesman Jim McNamara. "We want more people working and the Waterfront Commission makes that nearly impossible. Police it yes by New Jersey and New York state police. But stop the murder of jobs by an outdated agency that manufactures fantasy crime, holds up job opportunities, and treats decent working people as criminals at great public expense."

The union in recent years has strongly lobbied elected officials in New Jersey and New York to do away with the Waterfront Commission, arguing that it has outlived its purpose and has sought to interfere with hiring and the union’s collective bargaining.

But after the New Jersey Legislature voted late last year to unilaterally withdraw from the agency created decades ago to battle the deep-rooted corruption in New York Harbor, the commission took the state to court in January.

In early June, U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton in Newark issued an injunction preventing the state from acting, pending a full hearing on the matter—citing the need to reform corrupt and discriminatory hiring practices in the port, and continued mob influence there. She said that “it is in the public interest for the commission to continue its investigatory and regulatory work.”

In a statement, ILA President Harold Daggett said there are number of law enforcement agencies that can do a better and less costly job of licensing ILA members and policing the ports.

“As an agency that was created more than 65 years ago to supposedly keep organized crime influence away from the docks, they have failed miserably by their own admission: The Waterfront Commission claims they are still needed because the criminals they were supposed to eliminate for the past six and a half decades are still present,” Daggett stated.

He added that the ILA has an “independent ethical practices counselor” who members can call anonymously to report any violations to their rights, or report any influence of organized crime elements.

Asked whether anyone has ever called to report the influence of organized crime elements, McNamara said the 800 number that union members can use goes directly to the independent counselor, who may investigate as he sees fit.

"The ILA is not involved in this process," said the union spokesman.

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Cranes on the waterfront at a marine terminal in New Jersey. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Guilt by association

Most of the cases brought by the commission do not involve known mob "wiseguys," but rather allege an “association” with someone with ties to alleged crime figures.

Most recently, the commission took action against Frank Ferrara of Marlboro, who handles the movement of refrigerated containers used to ship food and other perishable cargo in and out of the port. He earned $355,359 a year, said officials.

According to the findings of an administrative law judge, Ferrara had a personal connection with Pasquale “Patty” Falcetti, Sr., who was convicted of defrauding the pension and welfare fund for longshoremen, and with the son of the late crime family Vincent “The Chin” Gigante.

The judge, Michael Zidonik, said the “uncontroverted power over waterfront labor and industry exercised by the Genovese crime family, particularly during the reign of Vincent Gigante, helped by his son, Andrew, establishes an inimical association with Andrew Gigante.”

"At no time has Frank Ferrara ever been accused of anything resembling any wrongdoing whatsoever,"

— Attorney Peter W. Till

He said ILA members are barred from associating with Andrew Gigante, yet Ferrara sustained a friendship.

“A reasonable objective observer could believe that the association with Andrew Gigante, and his blood ties to the crime family and its' waterfront criminal domain, could influence (Ferrara) in his capacity as a registered longshoreman,” he said. "Circumstantial and direct evidence shows that he knew very well that his friends Pasquale Falcetti, Sr. and Andrew Gigante were tied to organized crime and waterfront corruption. He chose to remain associated with them."

In a written response to the findings, an attorney for Ferrara said the Waterfront Commission had been overzealous in its charge.

“At no time has Frank Ferrara ever been accused of anything resembling any wrongdoing whatsoever,” wrote Peter W. Till of Springfield, in a challenge the commission’s findings. “In Frank Ferrara's nearly forty-year career, there has never been a single report of cargo missing from any of the thousands of containers that Frank Ferrara has come into contact.”

He added that Ferrara’s “unblemished history on the waterfront is a constructive renouncement of any of the irresponsible allegations of alleged association to organized crime.

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Boats get loaded at Port Elizabeth. (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

'They took my livelihood away...'

Earlier this year, Peter Boragi, a so-called “checker” who checks the cargo coming on and off vessels, also lost his ability to work on the waterfront as a result of his friendship with Louis Romeo. Romeo, authorities said, was convicted in a Colombo crime family bribery scheme involving debris removal from the World Trade Center site.

Like Ferrara, Boragi himself was never accused of any criminal wrongdoing, or involvement in racketeering in the port. It was simply his connection with Romeo that ended his $350,000-a-year job.

According to a report by an administrative law judge who held hearings on the case, Boragi had known Louis Romeo for more than two decades. “They attended ball games together, spent holidays together, and family and friend functions together,” wrote the hearing officer. “They went to each other’s homes. They went on vacation together.”

At Romeo’s sentencing, Boragi sent a letter to the judge describing him "not only a good friend, but more like a brother.”

In an interview, Boragi, who first began working at the port in 1985, said he had no connections to organized crime and still cannot believe he lost his job. He is convinced he was targeted because of the pay he makes as a longshoreman.

“They took my livelihood away,” said the Staten Island man.

He readily acknowledged he knew Romeo, but said he was no mobster.

“My son and his son attended kindergarten at St. Anne’s in Staten Island. We just got to talking and we hit it off. The kids grew up together and we became friends,” Boragi said.

According to Boragi, Romeo, owned a dump truck and had been doing carting business when he got into trouble in connection with a job that was tied to the Colombo crime family. He said Romeo did not know who he was dealing with and still does not believe that he was a member of organized crime.

“The others got jail sentences. He pleaded to a Class B misdemeanor. He went to jail for 6 months. That’s what they got him for,” Boragi said.

As for his own punishment, he said it was extreme. “I’ve seen alcoholics. People on heroin. They send them to rehab and they go back to work. But because I knew someone who went to jail and they consider him to be a bad person…” he paused. “I ran a pool at the pier in Staten Island. That was the worst thing they said I did. It was a Super Bowl pool.”

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Cargo containers are being loaded off of a freight train at Port Elizabeth. (Star-Ledger file photo)

An 'unacceptable risk of corruption...'

Arsenault said the case against Boragi was clear-cut, adding that the regulations regarding his removal from the port goes beyond just knowing somebody.

“Mere association is insufficient,” he said. “The association statute requires that the association be under circumstances inimical to the policies of the Waterfront Commission Act.”

What that has come to mean is that within the tight-knit waterfront, the belief of who is mobbed up and who is not, "strengthens the grip of the Genovese crime family over the longshoremen," according to an appellate ruling that upheld the statute.

Under the regulation, while there might not be any evidence that a birthday dinner is “anything more than a social occasion," such a meeting created an unacceptable risk of corruption that would cause others on the waterfront to believe someone was compromised or complicit.

“The standard in our statute is identical to the N.J. Casino Control Commission’s standard for barring someone from Atlantic City,” said Arsenault.

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Read more about the port

Where can you get paid $466K a year to wash trucks? Special deals, union clout at N.J. port

Busted! See how clever (and not so clever) smugglers are trying to sneak illicit cargo into New Jersey

Illicit cargo: Why are more stolen cars disappearing overseas?

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Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.