Two were charged in a massive union fraud case.
Federal prosecutors are seeking $22-million restitution from two Long Island, N.Y., men accused in an indictment of defrauding union pension funds of millions of dollars, officials said. Mario Renda, 46, and Martin Schwimmer, 43, both pleaded innocent to counts in a 145-count indictment charging them with racketeering, mail and wire fraud, embezzlement and paying off union officials. Officials said that from 1981 to 1984, Renda and Schwimmer brokered $100 million in union pension funds--for Sheetmetal Workers Local 38 of Peekskill, N.Y., and Teamsters Local 810 of New York--in 18 banks in 10 states. But the two allegedly inflated their commissions, collecting some of it in lump payments and cutting the amount of interest the pension funds could earn on their investments.
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