Teamsters Official Convicted, Another Cleared in FBI Movie Sting : Corruption: Former transportation chief is found guilty of conspiracy in elaborate undercover operation.

The former transportation captain of New England’s largest Teamsters local was convicted Thursday on federal conspiracy charges, but a former union vice president was acquitted in the trial that culminated the FBI’s Dramex sting, which had an agent pose as a film producer to smoke out organized crime influence over labor unions in the movie industry.

After a two-month trial in Boston, a federal jury found William Winn, 63, guilty on three counts, while exonerating James Moar, 63, the former vice president of 7,000-member Local 25.

Three New England mob figures were also indicted after the sting conducted by the Los Angeles office of the FBI, which came within days of actually filming a movie. One pleaded guilty before the trial in return for an 18-month prison term, another was accepted in the witness protection program and the third became gravely ill.

Although the elaborate undercover operation drew some criticism for its limited results, Assistant U.S. Atty. Fred M. Wyshak Jr. praised it Thursday as “a very successful investigation (that) identified some corruption in the Teamsters . . . resulted in a conviction of some members of the Patriarca (Mafia) family . . . and produced a very important witness.”

That was a reference to New England mob insider Thomas Hillary, who was caught in the sting and then turned into a government witness. Federal prosecutors are expected to use Hillary to make further cases against the leadership of the Patriarca clan--perhaps including its reputed boss, “Cadillac Frank” Salemme, whose son was supposed to be a defendant in the just-completed trial, but whose case was dropped because of an undisclosed illness.

The Dramex sting--for “Drama Expose”--was based on the undercover work of Los Angeles Agent Garland Schweickhardt, who studied film production at UCLA, was tutored by industry insiders and set up phony David Rudder Productions offices in Santa Monica, with a Rolls-Royce at the ready to make him look authentic.

Posing as David Rudder--a fledgling producer looking to make low-budget films--he traveled across the country armed with scripts that demanded “location” shooting in target cities such as New Orleans and Las Vegas. At each stop, he waved envelopes of cash before reputed mob figures and union leaders, bribes designed to buy “sweetheart” labor agreements allowing him to film with cheaper non-union workers.

Schweickhardt’s New England excursions generated criminal charges after he paid $65,000 to the three reputed mobsters from 1989 to 1990 to win their help getting concessions from the Teamsters.

Schweickhardt testified that he set up a production office in Providence, R.I., and came within a hair of filming a romantic comedy there.

“To give us credibility, we had several scripts,” he said. “We had all the hopes and intentions to do a movie.”

Federal authorities have not said why they ended the sting without going that far.

Attorneys for the two Teamsters argued that their clients thought Rudder was a real producer and only agreed to allow use of non-union drivers on his sets because his films had small budgets--and they hoped that he would return with larger projects.

“All Jim Moar ever did is try to do the job he was elected to do, negotiate on behalf of his union,” said Miriam Conrad, who represented the now-retired Teamster vice president.

The Teamsters did not testify, but defense attorneys produced evidence that other productions--including one for HBO--similarly had been allowed to film with non-union crews because they had low budgets.

Albert C. Bielitz Jr., who represented Winn, said the FBI was misled by the boasts of their mob targets--often in taped conversations--that they had influence over unions around the nation.

“They could write a book about it--’How the Mafia scammed the government,’ ” Bielitz said. But his client, Winn, was damaged by his own statements on the FBI tapes, and by evidence that he accompanied the reputed mobsters on trips to Nevada and New York on behalf of the phony producer.

The case against Moar was more circumstantial. He was caught on only one tape--and then insisting in 1988 that Rudder hire Teamsters. Defense attorney Conrad said the union vice president changed his position the next year only because the film’s budget dropped from $5 million to $1 million.

“I don’t know if the FBI got so invested in this that they lost sight of the bottom line . . . that my client was innocent,” Conrad said.

U.S. District Judge Robert Keeton set Winn’s sentencing for April 5. Although each count carries a potential five-year prison term, sentencing guidelines call for him to receive no more than two years.

Wyshak said the conviction should have a deterrent effect on other union officials thinking “whether to take a bribe or ask for a bribe.”

“It’s going to have the impact of making (them) land on the honest side,” he said.