New Jersey: Union Aide Admits Contractor Bribe
According to The Star Ledger:
The former business agent of a construction workers' local yesterday admitted taking tens of thousands of dollars in a series of bribes from contractors in exchange for labor peace and cutting back on the number of employees assigned to different work sites.
Craig Wask, 60, of Montvale, Bergen County, also told U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler in Newark that he shared some of the cash with other ranking officials of Local 825 of the International Union of Operating Engineers. In all, the bribes exceeded $200,000, federal prosecutors said.
Yesterday's plea by Wask represented another victory for the government in its campaign to clean up Local 825, which is based in Springfield and enjoys a membership of close to 8,000 equipment operators, mechanics and surveyors. Wask was its business agent from at least 2000 to 2006, said Anthony Moscato Jr., the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case.
Earlier this month, Kenneth P. Campbell, 56, of Basking Ridge, the local's business manager, and Peter O. Strannemar, 66, of Blairstown, its onetime president, were arrested and charged with taking bribes in an unsealed indictment. Both were implicated in the bribe scheme yesterday by Wask.
Wask pleaded guilty yesterday to seven counts of conspiracy to demand and receive illegal labor payments that were contained in a charging document known as a superseding information.
He faces a maximum penalty of 35 years in prison and more than $1 million in fines. Sentencing was scheduled for July.
The first count of the charges accused Wask and his co-conspirators of collecting more than $150,000 in bribes from a steel erector company, plumbing company, window company and plow company for work on a high-rise commercial building at 30 Hudson St. in Jersey City between May 2001 and July 2003....click to continue.
