On 03-18-13, NICHOLAS BOEL said to TIM RICHARDSON:   
      
      
   NB>Re: RE-Listing The Echo   
   NB>By: TIM RICHARDSON to NICHOLAS BOEL on Mon Mar 18 2013 10:05 am   
      
      
   TR> I'm reading in th epaper and seeing on TV news broadcasts all these new   
   TR> casinos and hotel complexes gettin' built in Vegas...Reno...and come to   
   TR> find out...the main financing behind a lot of them is pension fund money   
   TR> from unions! What the hell! When was the last time you were Vegas or Reno   
   TR> and got `comped' in a hotel\casino? Me neither.But if you belong to one   
   NB>of TR> the big international's.....it was OUR money that built a lot of   
   NB>them! And TR> I couldn't even get a lousy job out of the teamster's local.   
      
      
   NB>You know how they get that extra pension fund money? I know of one reason,   
   NB>which is probably a major one. When you die, if you haven't started   
   NB>collecting on your pension yet, your wife (if you have one) is only   
   NB>allowed like 60% of your pension. Where the hell does that 40% go? If   
   NB>you're not married, the next in line (any children or beneficiaries) are   
      
      
   I remember after I stopped trucking interstate, back in the early 1980's, the   
   situation with Jackie Presser in Cleveland (?). There were hearings going on   
   into the connection between the Teamsters and organized crime.   
      
      
   Presser and some others had defrauded the union funds for many years, as well   
   as `kickbacks' rolling in from various sources. They were also involved with   
   several high-ranking members of the mafia.   
      
      
   Presser got his salary from the union...income from fraud....and also, when   
   caught in a position that were grounds for a federal indictment (he, his   
   father, and Frank Fitzsimmons), he turned informant on his mafia   
   pals...started getting paid a salary by the FBI, and also kept making money   
   from *ghost employees* of the union he headed!   
      
      
   Suddenly....there was going to be testimony, and all this unraveled! Presser   
   was `outed' by the media as an informant of years standing....I can only guess   
   what the reaction was in the local mafia that morning when they saw the   
   headline! Presser.....their `boy at the top' in a union they'd controlled for   
   years......nothing more than a common rat!   
      
      
   Presser himself had been `outed' by a mob informant (Jimmy Fratiano) as being   
   involved with the Chicago mobster Joey Aiuppa. When confronted, Presser turned   
   informant himself.   
      
      
   Fortunately for Presser....he died of natural causes before the mafia's   
   enforcers got to him first, or he'd probably have been found with his own   
   scrotum in his mouth (a pretty common practice of mafia retaliation on a rat).   
      
      
   When this was unfolding I'd already stopped paying dues to the local I'd   
   belonged to, and was in an entirely different line of work.   
      
      
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   *Durango b301 #PE*    
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