New York Post
September 23, 2004
$2M Pipe Scheme
Plumbers who drained MTA guilty
By Laura Italiano
A
family of crooked millionaire Brooklyn plumbers -- notorious for their alleged
mob ties and gaudy Jersey mansion -- pleaded guilty yesterday to running
a racket that bilked the MTA out of $2 million in overcharges and labor fraud.
The Figliolia family -- father, wife and son -- will serve sentences ranging from probation to just under three years.
They'll also pay $6 million in restitution by selling their business property
at 420 Carroll St., said family lawyer Ronald Fischetti. But they will likely
keep their multimilllion-dollar Holmdel mansion, complete with indoor pool
with waterfall, outdoor swan pond, and indoor and outdoor pizza ovens.
Not punishment enough, said the man who began the investigation into the
scheme, retired NYPD Chief of Department and former MTA security director
Louis Anemone.
They bested the Manhattan DA's Office on this one," Anemone said of the Figliolias, calling the family "the lowest of the low."
"When you get a sense of the extent of the corruption they were involved
in, and for years prior to this indictment, it's mind boggling that they
got such an advantageous deal," he said.
Yesterday's guilty pleas, in Manhattan Supreme Court, sends to prison for at least 1 3/4 years the family patriarch, Alex Figliolia ,
60 -- notorious for tooling around Brooklyn's Carroll Street in a chauffeured,
custom-made, Mercedes stretch limo, license plate, "Mr. Fig."
The son, Alex Jr. -- against whom Manhattan prosecutors had the strongest
case -- gets 2 3/4 years prison for racketeering, grand larceny and bribery
and money laundering.
Prosecutors said Alex Jr., 31, a married Staten Islander, was the scheme's
wheeler-dealer, taking crooked MTA officials to Flashdancers and other pricey
hot spots in the course of doing "business."
Alex Sr.'s wife, Janet, 54 -- mistress of the $4 million Holmdel mansion
and an $800,000 jewelry collection -- got five years' probation. Prosecutors
say she ran the operation's bogus payroll, the company's major illicit money-maker.
The Figliolias
pocketed more than a million dollars by paying its mostly immigrant labor
force as little as $8 an hour, while charging the MTA the prevailing union
wage for plumbers, anywhere from $65 to $135 an hour, prosecutors charged.
Three corrupt MTA officials -- former director of facility operations Howard
Weissman, former facilities manager Ronald Allan and ex-building manager
Gary Weissbard -- have already pleaded guilty to taking bribes from the Figliolias to look the other way as the family overcharged on materials and labor.
Just how much of a financial hit the Figliolias will take is unclear. At
the least, they'll lose their license to do government contracts -- the bulk
of their income.
© 2004, NYP Holdings, Inc.