Gambino Labor Racketeer "Blackie" D'Agostino

"Blackie" D'Agostino was a Gambino Family associate who specialized in labor union corruption. A WWII veteran who grew up in the hardscrabble Brownsville/East New York section of Brooklyn, D'Agostino infiltrated the Laborers Union #46 and left behind a tidal wave of corruption.

One person who had a lot to say when he was called into the hearings to testify about the labor union's corruption was a guy by the name of Frank Leto. Years later, Leto would be identified by law enforcement as being affiliated with the Colombo Family .

The funny thing is that despite many people being called in to testify about the corruption (both cohorts and victims alike,) the only one missing from the hearings was D'Agostino himself!

George Lewis D’Agostino - aka “Blackie,” “Blackie Agostino,” “Georgie Agastino,” “Joseph Arena,” and “Giorgio D’Agostino” - was born on January 1, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York (Kings County,) to immigrant Italian parents Giuseppe (Joe) and Angelina D’Agostino. George came from a large family of at least eight children and was the first son as well as the eldest. His siblings included Josephine (Jo), Theresa (Tessie), Daniel, Angelo, Dominick, Salvatore, Joseph, and Louis.

Early on, his parents Joe and Angelina had settled in the tough, hardscrabble Brownsville/East New York section of Brooklyn. This is where George and his brothers and sisters would grow up. It’s also where D’Agostino would first cut his teeth within the New York underworld.

East New York, Brooklyn

Through the years, the family lived in various apartments and homes within the East New York section, but one of their earliest home addresses was at 134 Junius Street. He and his siblings attended various Kings County public schools, and George got as far as the 8th grade before he stopped going.

By the time he reached his early twenties, D’Agostino stood over six feet tall and was solidly built like a heavyweight, weighing in at 235 pounds. He had jet-black hair, dark brown eyes, and a dark Mediterranean, olive complexion that gave birth to his lifelong nickname of “Blackie.”

A Patriotic G.I. Joe

In 1940, during the height of the Allied fighting of WWII, like so many other young men from his Brooklyn neighborhood, D'Agostino decided to register for the draft and go overseas and fight against Adolf Hitler and the Axis forces . Blackie reportedly served several years in the Armed Forces before finally returning home to Brooklyn safely.

Not long after his return, D’Agostino fell in love with a local girl Polish girl, four years his senior from the neighborhood by the name of Anna Wolsky. On October 23, 1944, the two married after a short courtship. Soon enough, George and his wife started a family of their own, eventually having three kids together, two sons and a daughter. One son they named George F. Jr. (after his dad,) and the other they named Mark S. They named their girl Barbara Anna.

In those first years, the D’Agostinos lived in several different apartments in Brooklyn and in the Jamaica section of Queens.

Rubbin' Elbows with the Boys...

Dating back to at least the late 1930s - early '40s, D’Agostino was already associating with Brooklyn’s hoodlums. The East New York/Brownsville area was rife with underworld characters and criminal activity. Back in those days, nearly every street corner, candy store, bar, and pool hall seemed to be chock full of hoodlums and racketeers, not the least of whom were important members of all Five Families. And, for that matter, Jewish hoodlums by the hundreds, including such top guys as boss Louis (Lepke) Buchalter, and his deadly band of Murder, Inc. killers and functionaries.

Now referred to most commonly known on the streets as “Blackie,” over the years, it was said that D’Agostino dabbled in a wide variety of larcenous activities, not the least of which was burglary, loansharking or “shylocking,” extortion, and thefts. But within a few years' time, his real forte turned out to be his uncanny abilities and proclivities as one of New York’s more ambitious labor racketeers.

He was close with such Queens-based Gambino members as veteran Gambino caporegime Anthony (Tony Baker) Napolitano of Astoria, and soldiers Louie DiBono and Alphonse (Funzi) Mosca of Corona and Rego Park, respectively.

Other hoodlums he was known to associate or interact with included members of at least two of the city’s other four Cosa Nostra Families, including Genovese Family consigliere Mike Miranda and brothers George and Basile (Bobby Cherry) Cervone , who were both notorious Genovese-affiliated labor racketeers as well as a low-keyed Family soldier and labor official named Biagio (Benny) Lanza. Others worth mentioning included Queens-based Lucchese members Louis (Louie Beans) Foceri and Joseph (Joey Narrow) Laratro .

Laborers Local #46

Eventually, Blackie D’Agostino was installed by his mob friends and backers as the Business Agent for the powerful Mason Tenders Union - Local #46, which was an extension of the Laborers Union of North America. Local #46 was a completely mobbed-up union if ever there was one.

Although he was said to have known “everybody,” it seems that “Blackie” had gravitated more toward members of the Albert Anastasia Family, one of the most dominant Mafia networks operating in that section of the city at the time. The Anastasia Family, of course, would later become known as the Carlo Gambino Family after Anastasia received his last shave and haircut on that infamous day in the barber's chair at Manhattan’s Park Sheraton Hotel in 1957.

The Laborers Union International

For most of his lucrative career, D’Agostino seems to have been an enigma of sorts. That's because although he was an ex-convict having served time up in Elmira State Reformatory for attempted burglary years earlier, after making parole, Blackie kept his head low, if not his nose clean.

And in the coming years, he became very well-known and respected within the New York underworld. Yet, he largely remained a virtual unknown to the NYCPD and the FBI.

A Very Charmed Life

And whether it was due to his street savvy or just his good fortune, for many years, Blackie D’Agostino enjoyed a wealthy lifestyle that afforded him, his wife, and their kids to live in a very luxurious private residence in upscale Forest Hills, Queens.

In fact, during his capacity as a union official, he allegedly coerced and shook down one construction contractor to build him and his family, (at the contractor's cost,) a plush 11-room Forest Hills residence in the exclusive “Estates” section of the neighborhood. The home reportedly had five bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, and sat on a spacious, well-landscaped property.

The D’Agostino home, which allegedly cost $55,000 to build (a whopping sum of money in the 1950s,) was later sold by the mid-1960s for $85,000.

Side note: Coincidently, longtime Genovese Family consigliere and powerhouse, Michele (Mike) Miranda lived in the same neighborhood right down the block from D’Agostino.

Blackie was also known to be a sport with his money and was prone to lavish spending sprees on fancy clothes and late-model automobiles, restaurants and nightclubs, and frequent vacations with his wife and family.

Aside from his union activities, over the years, Blackie’s other business interests were thought to include hidden ownership interests in several local bars and grills in Brooklyn and Queens, a Queens nightclub, and other businesses.

Under the Spotlight

That all changed in 1968. By mid-June of that year, a full-blown labor rackets investigation was started in New York City. Scores of union officials, construction company owners, building contractors, businessmen, mob guys, doctors, and various others were being subpoenaed before the Grand Jury that was empaneled to hear their testimony and sift through the resulting evidence gleaned.

The proverbial “shit was about to hit the fan” as it were.

Not that it really mattered to Blackie, one way or the other by that stage of the game. Because the slippery racketeer had conveniently (or inconveniently, depending upon how you look at it,) already passed away several years earlier, in 1966. It seems that Blackie’s untimely passing may have been, in reality, another underworld coup that he had unwittingly pulled off.

This major criminal investigation was started by the New York State Investigation Commission after they empaneled a “special grand jury” to hear testimony regarding a probe into key members of the New York Mafia who were suspected of having deeply infiltrated and corrupted several labor unions and were now maintaining a stranglehold over Metropolitan area businesses.

Within the first two days of testimony, the name George (Blackie) D’Agostino, described as an official and business agent of the Laborers Union, had become the main focus of the probe.

Eh...What's Up Doc?

One D’Agostino-inspired racket that was revealed was phony medical claims that were then submitted to cooperating and “friendly” doctors by phantom card-carrying union “members” that successfully embezzled thousands and thousands of dollars from the local’s pension fund.

The doctor’s names and, purportedly, their signatures appeared on scores of alleged fraudulent medical benefit claim forms that were put into evidence before the commission during the opening days of the hearings.

Witnesses spill the beans!

According to the commission, these claim forms were then used to collect thousands of dollars from the insurance carrier representing Mason Tenders Union Local #46.

Investigators specifically focused on two physicians, Dr. Henry J. Meyers of Woodhaven, Queens, and Dr. Rosario Arnone of Bushwick, Brooklyn. When brought before the commission, both men invoked their Fifth Amendment privileges while being questioned about the alleged false claims.

On June 19, 1968, under questioning while under oath, both medical practitioners parroted the same line over and over, “I decline to answer that question on the grounds that to do so might incriminate me.”

Embezzlement and fraud galore!

According to Assistant Commission Counsel Robert McElligott, D’Agostino had arranged for several individuals to get phony union membership books in the Hod Carriers Union and then processed fraudulent claims for disability benefits and medical payments using their names.

Meyers was recorded declining to answer 31 questions posed to him by prosecutors. He pled the Fifth on all questions regarding his dealings and association with the union or with D’Agostino.

Dr. Arnone quickly leaves the hearing after getting grilled.

For his part, Arnone admitted knowing D’Agostino but then invoked his constitutional guarantee against self-incrimination 13 times when asked about the fraudulent medical claims.

At least one witness said he merely signed the insurance company checks made out to him and then turned them over to Blackie, who then cashed the checks and kept the money for himself, the witness testified.

More Mob Shenanigans

On another day, the commission heard testimony from the local’s assistant business manager, Sidney Gambino of Massapequa, L.I., who testified that he had been associated with D'Agostino for over 13 years in the union.

He completely denied any knowledge of wrongdoing and said that at the time of Blackie’s untimely death, in November 1966, both he and Blackie were earning a hefty $250 a week in salary plus operating expenses from the Local #46 treasury.

Gambino did admit under questioning that he once asked D’Agostino how he managed to buy and maintain a $85,000 luxurious home in the ritzy "Estates" section of Forest Hills, Queens, and regularly bet the ponies with such great regularity. Blackie quickly responded with a warning, “Mind your own fucking business, I have a lot of enterprises,” Gambino recounted for the grand jury.

He went on to say that any new membership applications or claims for medical benefits would have to be signed by the union official who instigated it and by Carmelo (Carmine) Romano, the union’s secretary-treasurer.

Subsequently, Romano was called in to testify, but he also invoked his Fifth Amendment privileges and refused to answer any questions or identify his alleged signature on more than 20 medical claims. He also declined to say if he had ever been arrested.

But Romano was later identified for the commission as a Gambino Family associate with a criminal record listing at least six arrests on charges ranging from assault to armed robbery, with one conviction for bookmaking.

Blackie's Private Piggybank

The hearings received extensive news coverage from all the local papers. Newsday reporter Tom Renner, one of the most respected investigative journalists and a noted expert in the field of organized crime reported, “A mob-backed union business agent, George (Blackie) D’Agostino, now dead, was described yesterday as the central figure behind a pattern of fraud that filled his pockets and those of his relatives and friends while bilking a union welfare fund and the state unemployment system.”

Blackie’s exploits hit the papers.

Renner wrote that in just one day, the State Commission grilled over a dozen witnesses, all of whom detailed D’Agostino's racket operations. D'Agostino was also publicly identified as a Gambino Family associate.

It was reported he ran a check cashing scheme and a related shakedown and extortion racket from construction contractors seeking labor peace that enabled him and his mob cronies to collect an estimated $60,000 in payoffs over several years.

After almost two weeks of hearings, Commission Chairman Myles Lane turned over all the transcripts of testimony and evidence of fraud and extortion to famed Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan for possible prosecution.

More Bad Actors

And even though Blackie was long gone by the time these hearings took place, Commissioner Lane said that among those still in his sights for possible indictment and prosecution were D’Agostino’s two brothers, Angelo and Louis, who had admitted under oath that they collected $2,600 in disability benefits while also getting $1,975 in unemployment benefits and another $780 in pay while they were supposedly disabled.

Other potential subjects for possible arrest and prosecution included:

> The two physicians, Dr. Arnone and Dr. Meyers, for willfully acting in concert with D’Agostino to defraud.

> An unidentified divorcee who collected $1,422 in medical benefits under the woman’s former husband’s name while he was unaware and away in Europe, the proceeds of which she split with D’Agostino.

> Michael F. Croce, a convicted dope pusher who was installed as a shop steward by D’Agostino. Croce, supposedly suffering from an ulcer, was used to defraud $1,172 in disability benefits and $400 in state unemployment checks while he also collected $2,345 in “no show” pay supposedly while at work on a construction job site.

A similar scheme involved another contractor, along with his relatives and two employees, who filed numerous fraudulent medical disability claim forms for $11,288, a portion of which was reputed to have been kicked back to Blackie.

The contractor, Joseph Vigliarola, a partner in a ready-mix concrete firm, invoked the Fifth Amendment when questioned about the fraudulent claims for himself, his brother and father, other relatives, and several friends and employees. All of this took place even though none of the Vigliarola family or their associates ever legally served as registered union members.

The Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick Maker

On June 14, 1968, two local businessmen testified that they each cashed checks totaling $5,000 to $10,000 a year, for several years for Blackie D’Agostino, even though the checks were actually made out to other individuals' names.

Dominick Falletti of Springfield Gardens, Queens, and a butcher, said he had met Blackie back in 1965. He described D'Agostino as a good customer who ran up bills of $200 a shot (a tidy sum back in the 1960s) and then always paid with a check.

According to Falletti, he and Blackie became very friendly and the hoodlum eventually talked Falletti into dropping his Blue Cross coverage and joining the union to take advantage of its welfare fund.

Falletti recounted that D'agostino would regularly bring in a check already signed to Falletti’s shop, his wife Marianne would endorse it and cash it at their bank, return to the shop, and give the money to Blackie. Falletti also added that his wife once said, “What’s the matter with these guys? They’re such big shots, don’t they even have their own bank account?”

He then tried to explain it all away by telling the grand jury he didn’t want to lose a good customer, so that's why he let it continue. He admitted that he cashed 14 checks for a total of $4,474 but that there were others as well that he couldn't remember the specifics about.

Dominick Falletti testifies.

A restauranteur by the name of Sigmund Westfal gave similar testimony. He testified that he cashed checks for D'Agostino on numerous occasions.

Both men said that the checks were from the accounts of various building contractors and made out to different names and in amounts up to $500 apiece that D’Agostino told them were members of his union.

As a reward for their efforts and assistance, Blackie D’Agostino offered them “a kind of insurance," Falletti recounted. “I didn’t want to join the union, but he was insistent. And besides, for only $7 a month premium you can’t go wrong.”

He said soon after D'Agostino brought him some forms and told him to sign them, which he did.. Falletti claimed he didn't learn until later that the forms were fraudulent medical claims totaling $2,242 to the Labor Union Life Insurance Co. He said he endorsed the checks and D’Agostino got the money.

Westfal said that he had a similar arrangement with Blackie. In two years' time, medical bills totaling $2,475 were paid for by the union welfare fund insurance company. Subsequently, as a thank you, D'Agostino gave him the royal treatment and sent Westfal away on vacation to Miami Beach as a reward for his assistance.

He went on to say that all he did in return was cash checks averaging around $10,000 each year. “If he gave me a check and said don’t worry about it, I cashed it for him," the compliant Westfal said. “I just figured he didn’t want to show the money on his tax returns.”

A $7 Million Shakedown

A major building contractor named Rubin Garfinkel who lived in exclusive Roslyn Heights, Long Island, was hauled before the grand jury and grilled about his practice of withdrawing $400 to $500 each week in $50 and $100 bills for “job expenses.” Garfinkel testified that the money was all accounted for on vouchers he filed each week. But unfortunately, he said, they all had been destroyed after the completion of a massive $7,000,000 Howard Beach, Queens building project his construction company had built.

Under further questioning, he adamantly denied that “Blackie” or anyone else had ever coerced him or shook him down for extortion money to maintain “labor peace” on his construction sites.

The proverbial shit hits the fan!

But Garfinkel’s former bookkeeper, a woman by the name of Jean True, contradicted his testimony by stating under oath that expense vouchers justifying all these cash withdrawals never came in weekly as Garfinkel had alleged. She said that it took her over 15 months to gather up most of the vouchers required to match the money taken and that on several occasions when they couldn’t find matches, she was ordered by Garfinkel’s office manager to just fill out phony vouchers to match to the expenditures.

And the hits kept coming!

Another mason contractor told the commission that each year he would give D’Agostino two checks for his union’s welfare fund, one of which was always made out to cash.

In other testimony trying to link mob figures to the union, several witnesses testified to the effect that over $30,000 was withdrawn from the union treasury and made out to petty cash, without the benefit of vouchers. None of it was ever uncovered until much later.

Other witnesses included three more contractors who disclosed that they were coerced into making “loans” to union officials that were never paid back so that they would be permitted to hire non-union workers on union-contracted construction projects. Another ploy was to allow shop stewards to collect weekly salaries for work they never performed in return for overlooking violations of union contract rules.

One of the contractors named Joseph V. Giffuni, president of Merit Construction Company in Brooklyn, admitted that he was $50,000 in arrears over a three-year period on his pension and welfare payments to Gambino Family-controlled Local #47 and Genovese Family-controlled Local #13 (run by the Cervone brothers for Mike Miranda.)

Joe Giffuni exits the hearing after testifying.

A mobbed-up shop steward named Thomas (Tommy Brown) Cucchiara collected $4,745 for 1,050 hours of work in 1964, even though he rarely showed up for work. At the same time, the commission discovered that Cucchiara had also collected $11,440 as a shop steward for three other companies.

On two occasions in June 1964, he showed up on two company payrolls listing him as having worked a combined total of 100 hours a week, for two weeks. He earned $950. In July, he was listed on three different payrolls for a total of 89 hours, earning $414.

Mobster “Tommy Brown” Cucchiara (L), with his attorney.

Giffuni told the commission that it was common practice to pay shop stewards for work they didn’t perform because it prevented harassment. Cucchiara, who took the Fifth 30 times, was described by investigators as the "hand-picked choice" of Carlo Gambino and his top lieutenants "to serve as Local #47’s assistant business agent ”

Two other contractors, Anthony LaGrassa of Royal Bricklaying Corp., and Joseph A. Ferrara of J.B.J. Construction Corp. and Spartan Development Corp., admitted that these types of arrangements with the underworld saved them thousands of dollars in union pension and welfare fund payments. They both made these arrangements through an agreement with Blackie D’Agostino before he died.

Anthony LaGrassa

Contractor Joe Ferrara tries to avoid newsmen after testifying.

LaGrassa admitted he had paid off D’Agostino for “labor peace” by slipping him $3,300 under the table. In return, the mobster allowed him to hire union members below set union wage scales and non-union workers while making La Grassa pay only occasional nominal “fines” to the welfare fund in the names of employees he had never hired. The contractor said that he saved over $34,000 in wages with this practice.

Ferrara later testified that he, too, worked money-saving labor racket schemes over the years with Blackie in this exact same manner.

Mob Treachery and Dissension

Another facet of the investigation focused on intra-union strife and competition between hoodlums vying for control of several union locals.

The testimony of Frank X. Leto of Hollis, Queens came as the highlight of a day of testimony probing the mob's control of Mason Tenders Union locals. He was the last of six witnesses who testified that day. Like the others, including mobster "Tommy Brown" Cucchiara, Leto took the Fifth Amendment when asked about mob associates and the pressure applied to get him his job by the higher-ups of the Gambino Family.

Would-be union delegate Frank X. Leto is questioned.

Leto, ostensibly a liquor store owner, said that he ran for assistant business agent with his friend, Thomas Faletta, who was running for business agent in Mason Tenders Local #37. Their opponents for office were James and Frank Mauro. Leto said he decided to run because union members were disgruntled over scarce jobs and corrupt local practices. He said shop stewards paid $1,000 to get “plum” project posts where they would operate wide-open gambling and loanshark rackets. He also said that laborers “had to take care of someone” in order to get weekly work.

Side note: Despite his public testimony, years later, law enforcement sources identified Frank Leto as an organized crime figure himself who was affiliated with Brooklyn’s Joseph Colombo Family.

Leto testified that soon after he began his campaign, he started receiving anonymous phone calls at his home late at night. His wife was threatened, and one unidentified caller told him, “We’ll blow your fucking head off if you don’t drop out of the race.”

He said he was eventually forced out of the race on a legal technicality, and his buddy Faletta, who eventually lost the election, was blackballed from all union jobs for refusing to knuckle under to the mob's demands

It Was Great While It Lasted!

George L. (Blackie) D’Agostino died on December 17, 1966. He was waked at the popular Romanelli Funeral Home, in South Ozone Park, Queens, a favorite final destination among the bent-nose set.

His well-attended wake was followed by a Catholic Mass at Our Lady Queens of Martyrs R.C. Church. Blackie was then buried in the family plot at St. John’s Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens.

Unfortunately, despite his continued luck and good fortune as a very active and successful union official and underworld figure, when Blackie got that call to report to that big union “shapeup hall” in the sky, he was just 49 years old.

Until next time…”The Other Guy”

Gambino Labor Racketeer “Blackie” D’Agostino

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