Word: montella
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...major charges against Scotto were that he had accepted $300,000 over five years from two dockside businessmen, William Montella Jr. and Walter D. O'Hearn Jr. As evidence, the prosecution produced 27 tape recordings from FBI eavesdropping on Scotto's conversations over a period of five months. On one 1978 tape, he could be heard accepting $5,000 in cash from Montella in the men's room of a New York City hotel. Montella, the onetime owner of a marine carpentry company, testified that the payment was supposed to help prevent labor troubles...
...Montella was hardly a model witness. He told the court that he could go to jail for "100 years" if he confessed all his past crimes. Said he: "On the waterfront, no business is completely honest." Montella even explained how to persuade a reluctant bar owner to sign over his business. "You take a hair blower," he instructed the rapt court, "get it hot and put it on his neck until he signs. He'll sign...
...trial also produced evidence that Scotto, who is paid a salary of $120,000 a year by Local 1814, operated in a style far removed from the grimy docks. Montella testified, for example, that he had built Scotto a swimming pool cabana for free at his Catskills summer home. Scotto answered that he had paid $10,200 for this work but that he had paid in cash. Scotto also acknowledged that he acquired a 13% interest in a multimillion-dollar East Side apartment building for only $26. He dealt mainly in cash, he said, to thwart the continuous harassment...
Scotto admitted receiving a total of $75,000 from Montella and O'Hearn but insisted that the money was intended for political contributions. The union leader said that he in turn donated $25,000 in cash to New York Governor Carey's re-election campaign in 1978 and $50,000 in cash through an associate to Lieutenant Governor Mario Cuomo's unsuccessful campaign for mayor of New York City in 1977. Making political donations of more than $100 in cash is illegal, but Scotto claimed ignorance of the law. Both Carey and Cuomo denied any knowledge...
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