LABOR : Keeping Top Teamsters in Legal Corral Becomes Less Contentious for Ex-Judge

Soon after Frederick B. Lacey took office last year as court-appointed administrator of the Teamsters, leaders of the union tried to freeze him out of their executive board meetings by holding secret, unannounced sessions.

More at home in a courtroom than his adversaries, the former federal judge and one-time prosecutor of political corruption cases took the problem to U.S. District Judge David N. Edelstein, the crusty New York jurist who had appointed him to supervise a three-year housecleaning of the scandal-scarred union.

Barely in control of his temper, Lacey confronted James T. Grady, the Teamster’s general counsel, in Edelstein’s presence and quoted sections of a consent order signed by Grady and other officials of the nation’s largest union, granting him the right to attend all business meetings.

Edelstein backed Lacey to the hilt.

Reflecting on his sometimes stormy 20 months as union administrator in an interview in his law office, Lacey said his battles with top Teamster officials are less belligerent now. In any case, he said the periodic fighting has been more than offset by the hundreds of “gratifying” letters he has received from rank-and-file unionists. Union members follow his efforts to rid the Teamsters of criminal elements through regular monthly reports that Lacey writes for the International Teamster, the union’s official publication.

Grady and William J. McCarthy, the current Teamster president, were so antagonistic to Lacey’s reports that they sought to suspend publication of their magazine last year rather than continue printing them. But once again, after Lacey apprised Edelstein of the effort to block his work, the judge ordered the union to stay the course.

“We’re on a much better basis now,” Lacey said of his relationship with Grady and McCarthy. “We’ve managed to overcome some of our early problems. I think the leadership recognized that some of the initial antagonism was counterproductive.”

Although Lacey is reluctant to say so, some federal officials attribute the improvement to his refusal to be co-opted by the Teamster chieftains. A towering, ham-fisted man, the 70-year-old former jurist looks like he could hold his own anywhere.

As a federal prosecutor in New Jersey from 1953 to 1971, he brought a series of organized crime and political corruption cases, sending the notorious Albert Anastasia to prison for income tax evasion and successfully prosecuting dozens of public officials, including former Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio of Newark, on corruption charges. Appointed to the federal bench in 1971, he served until his retirement four years ago to join a prestigious law firm.

Edelstein, supervising the settlement of a civil racketeering lawsuit brought by the government, named Lacey in 1989 to head a three-member board to rid the Teamsters of criminal influences and to plan the first secret-ballot election of national union officers in 1991. Government reports over the years have charged that key positions in the 1.6-million-member union have been controlled not by the members but by organized crime.

Lacey chairs frequent disciplinary hearings to weigh charges brought against Teamsters by a court-appointed investigations officer. So far, he has heard cases involving more than 60 union officers charged with having links to organized crime or with past financial misconduct. While many cases remain unresolved, he has banned more than 30 Teamsters from further union activities or accepted their resignations.

Lacey said he is acting slowly and deliberately to give everyone “due process,” but some Teamster defense lawyers complain he is “a hanging judge.” He also has the power to veto union expenditures, a power he has rarely used, and to arbitrate disputes arising from the work of a court-appointed elections officer.

“Understand that we are not a grand jury and we are not the FBI or the Labor Department,” Lacey said. “There are limits to what we can do. Ultimately the success or failure of our efforts will be measured largely by the election process. The goal is to promote democracy in this union--to give the rank-and-file a significant voice.”