Sanctions Sought Against Top Teamsters

A court-appointed administrator is seeking sanctions against top Teamster officers in an escalating battle between the nation’s largest union and its federal overseers, it was learned Thursday.

The administrator, Frederick B. Lacey, has filed a court petition contending that union leaders, in apparent violation of a court agreement, are meeting in secret to discuss ways of thwarting his work. Lacey is one of three court-appointed officers charged with monitoring Teamster activities.

Lacey, a former federal judge in New Jersey, has told U.S. District Judge David N. Edelstein in New York that the union’s 21-member executive board conducted two recent meetings--in Washington and in Florida--without informing him so that he could attend.

Lacey said the union’s failure to let him know about the meetings violated a notification clause in a court agreement approved last March to settle the government’s unprecedented civil racketeering suit against the union.

Lacy has asked Edelstein to enforce the agreement by imposing unspecified sanctions against the union, which could include fines or jail terms for union officers. Teamster officers refused to comment on the matter.

Sources said that Lacey was deliberately excluded from recent meetings so that union leaders could talk privately about whether there are grounds to back out of the court agreement.

Some union leaders have found the agreement “intrusive and burdensome” and complained that Charles M. Carberry, a court-appointed investigations officer named to work with Lacey, is attempting to oust three or four members of the board, the sources said.

Some Teamster officers protested at the meetings that they had agreed to the settlement with the understanding that all present board members would remain in office, free from actions by Lacey or Carberry to remove them from office, according to the sources.

But three union vice presidents told their colleagues that they were being threatened with ouster by Carberry based on allegations that they had associated with organized crime figures in the past, the sources said. The three vice presidents are Ted R. Cozza of Pittsburgh, Joseph Trerotola of New York and Joseph W. Morgan of Hallandale, Fla.

But others at the meetings reportedly said that there is no proof that the government has reneged on any promises of immunity because nothing in the agreement exempts any officer from scrutiny. Instead, the agreement states that Carberry may recommend, and Lacey may approve, the removal of any Teamster official for “just cause.”

In addition, court records show that Carberry is seeking to oust Vice President Harold Friedman of Cleveland based on his federal court conviction last January on racketeering, embezzlement and conspiracy charges in a payroll-padding scheme.

Rejecting arguments by Friedman’s lawyers, Edelstein ruled Thursday that Lacey has jurisdiction to decide whether Friedman should be expelled from office.

The Teamsters agreed to the court-approved settlement to resolve a long-pending civil suit brought by the Justice Department under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The suit had charged that the union was heavily influenced by organized crime and that it no longer was serving the interests of its membership responsibly.

At the same time he appointed Lacey and Carberry last spring, Edelstein also named Michael H. Holland, a Chicago attorney, to supervise the union’s first nationwide direct election of a president two years from now.

Edelstein has approved a $100,000 operating fund by the Justice Department to pay the legal fees of Lacey, Carberry and Holland, with the provision that the Teamsters must reimburse the fund for those payments. The court-appointed officers had complained that the union’s reluctance to pay their fees on time was hindering their work.

The union claimed that the fees were exorbitant and that the court appointees were running up costs by hiring too many staff assistants. But Edelstein endorsed the expenses incurred so far by the three appointees.

“While the court lauds the interest of the IBT (International Brotherhood of Teamsters) in saving their membership money, I find the IBT’s current pattern of behavior unacceptable,” Edelstein stated in a recent supplementary opinion.