It was all part of the cost of doing business at construction sites around the area that prosecutors say were rampant with mob corruption.
The shakedowns were outlined in a sweeping indictment this week that led to the arrests of dozens of mobsters on charges including murder, gambling, drug dealing and credit-card fraud. It was one of the largest mob crackdowns in recent memory.
The extortion in the construction industry - described mostly in the indictment by an informant who paid off the mob on jobs for his trucking, cement and excavation businesses
- prove that organized crime's ties to construction are as strong as ever, observers say.
"It's still a major problem in the construction industry," said Randy Mastro, a former federal prosecutor who also targeted mob ties to construction as a deputy mayor with Rudy Giuliani. "It's like rat infestation in the city. ... Somehow they reproduce and come back."
The indictment also raises questions about the integrity of several high-profile projects in the city, in the middle of one of its busiest building booms in decades.
One of six major construction officials indicted Thursday was Anthony Delvescovo, director of tunnel operations for Schiavone Construction Co. of Secaucus, N.J. The company has dozens of government contracts worth billions, including the extension of a subway line and a new city water tunnel. A woman who answered the phone at Schiavone said the company had no comment.
Delvescovo, reputed mob associate Nicholas Calvo and union official Michael King allegedly shook down a subcontractor identified in the indictment only as "John Doe No. 4." The informant is Joseph Vollaro, the owner of Andrews Trucking and other companies, according to a federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the individual was not named in the documents.
The official said Vollaro was the key to most of the construction charges in the indictment, delivering hundreds of hours of tape-recorded conversations with many of the defendants. Delvescovo, Calvo and King extorted payments for three years from Vollaro relating to his work for Schiavone, the indictment said.
"This investigation exposed the alleged grip that the Gambino organized crime family has had over one of the largest construction markets in the United States, from small private projects to large scale public works contracts," U.S. Department of Labor Inspector General Gordon Heddell said at a news conference announcing the indictment. "This involved the trucks that move construction material and debris throughout the entire New York City region."
Schiavone has three open contracts with the city worth more than $1 billion relating to construction of water tunnels, and recently completed work on a Bronx water treatment facility.
