3 Appointed to ‘Cleanse’ Teamsters of Corruption

A well-respected former federal judge, an aggressive ex-Wall Street prosecutor and a highly regarded labor lawyer were named Wednesday to oversee the operations of the scandal-ridden Teamsters Union as part of the settlement of an unprecedented civil racketeering suit against the 1.6-million-member union.

U.S. District Judge David N. Edelstein announced the appointments of the overseers at a brief hearing in New York. He said the appointments were an “important first step” in “cleansing the union of corrupt influences and establishing democratic self governance.”

Frederick B. Lacey, a former federal judge and U.S. attorney in New Jersey, will serve as administrator of the union until late in 1991.

Charles M. Carberry, former head of the commodities and securities fraud unit in the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York and spearhead of insider trading prosecutions against Ivan F. Boesky, Dennis B. Levine and Martin A. Siegel, was tapped to serve as an “investigations officer” for the union, with the power to bring charges against union officials and employees.

Michael H. Holland, a Chicago labor lawyer and former general counsel of the United Mine Workers of America, was picked to supervise Teamster elections in 1990 and 1991.

On March 14, Judge Edelstein approved a consent decree to settle a massive civil racketeering suit the Justice Department had filed against the union in June, 1988. The suit alleged that the union, three of whose presidents had been convicted of federal crimes and sent to prison, was dominated by organized crime and had “made a devil’s pact” with the Mafia.

Agree to Reforms

The consent decree settling the suit left most of the union’s top officials, including President William J. McCarthy, in place. In exchange, though, Teamster officials agreed to change the union’s constitution to permit direct election of the union’s top officers and to allow three court-appointed officials to oversee its operations and elections for the next two years.

“The public has a significant stake in the outcome of the decree,” Judge Edelstein said Wednesday. The Teamsters Union “exercises vast power and cuts across every segment of society. It affects every aspect of our lives. Such power must be insulated against corruption and criminal elements. . . . “

Lacey, 68, a former U.S. attorney and federal district court judge in Newark, will have the power to discipline and fire Teamster officials, appoint temporary trustees to run local unions and veto proposed union expenditures. Harold N. Ackerman, a federal district judge in Newark who handled a major racketeering case the government brought against a large New Jersey Teamster local, praised Lacey as having been an “outstanding prosecutor and one of the finest federal judges in the country.”

sh Has Broad Authority

Carberry, 38, now a partner in the New York office of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, one of the nation’s largest law firms, will have broad authority to investigate alleged instances of corruption in the union. “He’ll do a very good job,” said Ira Lee Sorkin, former director of the New York office of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Holland, 42, has had experience in direct referendum elections for union officials during his tenure at the Mine Workers, one of the few unions in the country that directly elects its top officials.

Researcher Charles Hirshberg in New York contributed to this story.