A criminal complaint was unsealed on Thursday in a federal court, Eastern District of New York, charging five men in conspiring to obtain a union card and employment at Hudson News newsstands for Castelazzo Jr., son of Benjamin Castellazzo, the alleged underboss of the Colombo family of La Cosa Nostra.
The complaint charged Benjamin Castellazo Jr., Rocco Giangregorio, Glenn LaChance, Rocco Miraglia, aka “Irving,” and Anthony Turzio, aka “the Irish Guy,” with mail fraud conspiracy. The five men were arrested earlier on Thursday, and their initial appearances were before United States Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn.
The NMDU is an independent union representing approximately 1,500 employees involved in the newspaper industry in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Members of the union deliver newspapers for publications like the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, and El Diario. Hudson News Distribution Company is a newspaper and magazine distribution company.
According to the complaint, between June 2009 and October 2009, Miraglia, who was a foreman at the New York Daily News – as well as an associate of the Colombo organized crime family and the son of a deceased soldier in the Colombo family – conspired with officials of the NMDU and with Turzio, an employee of El Diario, to get an NMDU union card for Castellazzo Jr. and place him in a job at Hudson News. Castellazzo Jr. is the son of Benjamin Castellazzo, the alleged underboss of the Colombo family. Giangregorio and LaChance, who are business agents for the NMDU, also participated on this scheme.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations and the FBI, with assistance from the New York City Police Department, the New York County District Attorney’s Office and Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor.
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