The State - News from Jan. 24, 1989

A federal judge in San Francisco has refused to declare a mistrial in the case against former culinary union leaders and a self-proclaimed Mafia triggerman, despite news reports linking them to an influence peddling investigation of a San Jose federal judge. U.S. District Judge William Orrick rejected arguments that the news reports of a grand jury investigation involving Judge Robert Aguilar in San Jose may have gotten back to jurors, mandating a mistrial. Orrick’s ruling came after a closed door hearing with attorneys for former Culinary Workers Union leaders Sol Schwartz and Frank Marolda as well as Abe Chapman, who has reportedly boasted he worked in the 1930s as an assassin for the Mafia hit squad called Murder Inc. The three were indicted on fraud charges in 1983 in an alleged plot to give control of a union pension fund to organized crime.