TOWERS FELL AND MOB SCHEMES BEGAN
How organized crime divvied up Ground Zero work
IT’S 11:34 A.M. on Sept. 11, 2001, just an hour after the second twin tower has fallen. Already, the mob is scheming to get its piece.
In a suburban one-family home on Staten Island’s south shore, Allen Monchik, a Luchese crime family associate with two fraud convictions on his résumé, is working the phones.
His fi rst call is to a Port Authority engineer who , investigators will later say, regularly steers jobs at Kennedy Airport to mob-controlled subcontractors in return for bribes.
During the next few hours, as Navy destroyers steam toward New York and fi ghter jets patrol the sky overhead, Monchik calls the engineer 12 more times.
As the afternoon progresses, Monchik repeatedly phones a Bronx subcontractor connected to a Gambino family associate. He then calls a Jersey City construction company allegedly controlled by a Luchese family soldier. He completes his marathon day of phone conversations with a call to a major contracting executive who’s a reputed Luchese associate.
By the morning of the 12th, the mob is in a feeding frenzy to get in on the massive cleanup job that will inevitably ensue in lower Manhattan.
In fact, organized crime and corrupt subcontractors turned the terrorist attack into a windfall, according to a four-month Daily News investigation of the federal government’s $21.4 billion 9/11 disaster recovery program.
Down at Ground Zero, the Luchese family, the Colombos, the Gambinos and even the New Jersey-based DeCavalcantes all made out, according to court documents, government records and interviews.
They divvied up Ground Zero the way the mob carved up Las Vegas in the old days.
Unbeknown to Monchik and his business associates, all of the calls were being tracked by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau’s offi ce.
The DA had been looking into corruption in the asbestos removal industry and happened to run into the blizzard of phone calls in the hours following the terrorist attacks.
In documents obtained by The News, investigator Thomas Coyne described Monchik as an
“earner” — a guy who
funnels payoff cash to
the underworld.
Over the years, Monchik made millions as a
consultant scaring up
hefty government contracts for mob-connected companies, investigators say.
Monchik made more
calls throughout the
12th and 13th, records
show — one to another Luchese associate/
subcontractor and fi ve
more to the major contracting executive he
had called on 9/11, including a conference
call with an offi cial at
one of the New Jerseybased asbestos removal companies that Monchik worked for as a
consultant.
He then made what
investigators characterize as the most important call of all — to the
acting boss of the Luchese crime family , Louis ( Louie Bagels) Daidone, a gangster who once held down a suspected informant so he could be shot in both eyes while a dead canary was stuffed into his mouth.
According to Coyne, the series of calls immediately following the Trade Center attacks show that Monchik was helping the mob divide up the work that would soon be available at Ground Zero.
“Monchik coordinated with other Luchese associates who were ‘earners’ . . . to ensure
that Monchik and other Luchese associates received lucrative shares of the Ground Zero cleanup contracts,” Coyne wrote. “Monchik followed organized crime protocol of informing the acting boss, Daidone, of Monchik’s Ground Zero dealings in order to receive Daidone’s approval or rejection.”
The call to Daidone, Coyne charged, was related to “the division of work between individuals and corporations associated with the Luchese organized crime family.”
Sources close to the investigation say Monchik is cooperating with prosecutors on the construction corruption but is not spilling about the mob.
Although it is not known precisely what Monchik and his gangster associates discussed, it appears that his phone activity paid off handsomely.
At least four of the companies Monchik called in those crucial fi rst hours wound up with millions of dollars in taxpayer- funded work related to the 9/ 11 cleanup.
All told, The News investigation found that at least $63.2 million of the $458 million FEMAfunded Ground Zero cleanup went to companies accused of mob ties .
Like the rats that infested the ruins of Ground Zero for a time, gangster-related companies were prevalent removing debris from inside the cleanup zone , wiping toxic dust off Trade Center artifacts and decontaminating apartments at Battery Park City.
The News has documented that an alleged mob associate wound up as general superintendent for one of the four major contractors hired to supervise the cleanup, a powerful position that investigators say allowed him to steer work to gangster pals.
Several fi rms were later accused of paying off corrupt offi cials of a union infi ltrated by the Mafia to let them use cheaper nonunion help.
Investigators
found mob fi gures
visiting Ground
Zero, too.
Tommy Cappa,
a Colombo crime
family associate,
was put on the payroll of an asbestos
removal company doing Sept. 11
cleanup while still
on probation for
his role in a 1991
mob war murder
conspiracy.
D o c u m e n t s
show he was paid
$200 a week on the
books, but he proclaimed on tape that he pocketed 20% of every job the company won.
At one point, investigators watched Cappa meet with Monchik at Ground Zero, then drive off in a white 2002 Jaguar registered to Cappa’s wife. At another point, Cappa recounted that he’d met with another gangster, prohibited by probation rules requiring that he avoid organized crime figures.
Allegations also surfaced that steel from Ground Zero was being illegally diverted to a New Jersey transfer station. City investigators wound up buying Global Positioning System units for debris removal trucks to make sure they were going where they were supposed to go.
- LOOSENING THE RULES -
Many subcontractors did exemplary work, sacrificing a great deal in a community-spirited moment. But the emergency nature of the Ground Zero cleanup prompted the same disregard for customary business practices that The News investigation has uncovered in other aspects of the 9/11 recovery aid program.
The need for speed determined policy.
Government traditionally tries to protect taxpayers by making subcontractors compete for jobs with secret bids.
Because of the urgency of the Ground Zero cleanup, the city invoked emergency powers, exempting the Department of Design & Construction from competitive bidding, except where it was practical. Because it was never feasible, it never occurred.
“That was really seat- of-pants sort of stuff,” said one city official involved in the process.
Michael Richman, a vice president for one of the subcontractors hired to haul debris, stated in an affidavit filed as part of a related civil lawsuit: “There were no written contracts on this job. Due to the emergency, people began working first and discussed billing later.”
Referring to a 30-day lull in registration rules for trucking companies, another official who wished to remain anonymous explained: “The licensing regulations went by the board on Sept. 11 because we wanted to get that stuff out of there.”
rpienciak@nydailynews.com
Additional research by Ellen Locker