U.S. Labels Biaggi and 6 Others Thieves as Wedtech Trial Opens

U.S. Rep. Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.) and six co-defendants were greedy thieves who plundered a now-defunct Bronx defense contractor for millions of dollars, the government charged Friday at the start of the Wedtech Corp. racketeering trial.

“This is a case about corruption and greed and the purchase and sale of public offices. It is a case about public officials who want to get paid twice, once by the people who elected them to do their job, again by someone else,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Howard Wilson told the jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

“This case involves the story of the rise of a little company in the Bronx” that began in 1965 as a machine shop and grew by 1978 to $1.5 million in sales by taking advantage of laws that promoted the growth of minority-owned enterprises, Wilson said.

‘Corruption and Lies’

“Seven years later, this company had grown like Topsy” to a defense contractor with 1,000 employees and $117 million in revenues, becoming “the biggest single employer in the Bronx,” he said. “The success was achieved through corruption and lies.”

Defendants in the trial are Biaggi; former Bronx Borough President Stanley Simon; Bernard G. Ehrlich, Biaggi’s former law partner; Biaggi’s son, Richard; Peter Neglia, former regional administrator of the Small Business Administration; John Mariotta, former Wedtech chairman, and Ronald Betso, a former police officer and friend of Neglia’s.

“They all treated this company like a gold mine,” Wilson said. “Some took a lot. Some took a little. But they all took.”

Wilson said he would present testimony from Wedtech accountants, supervisors, workers, Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.) and four former officials who have pleaded guilty to crimes involving Wedtech.

Defense attorneys will begin presenting their arguments Monday.