Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. 
jwm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/nyregion/12waterfront.html?_r=1&hp
August 12, 2009
Report Finds Corruption at Waterfront Watchdog
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, which was created in the 1950s to break the mob’s grip on the docks, became its own bastion of lawlessness, employing the same corrupt, self-serving methods of the pier-based gangsters it was supposed to pursue, investigators reported in a scathing report released Tuesday.
Top officials at the $11-million-a-year bistate agency divided spoils, helped cronies evade the law and thwarted security provisions meant to safeguard the port against terrorism, according to the report by the New York State inspector general, which came after a nearly two-year investigation that the commission had vainly sought to block in court.
As a result of the findings, virtually the entire executive staff has been ousted — including the New Jersey commissioner, Michael J. Madonna, a former police officer and union representative, it was announced Tuesday. The former New York commissioner, Michael C. Axelrod, also faulted for abuses, was not reappointed after his term ended last year. New leadership has since been put in place, officials said, and is in the process of instituting changes.
“It was an utter disaster when we stepped in,” the inspector general, Joseph Fisch, said in an interview, calling the state of affairs then “a remnant and continuation of the old waterfront.”
The “disaster” is captured in graphic terms in the 61-page report. Among the findings:
¶The commission’s general counsel, Jon Deutsch, also later fired, masterminded a scheme to conceal a felon’s ownership of a company convicted of federal racketeering charges so he could continue to operate on the waterfront.
¶The commission’s auditing director, Frank Nastasi, ran a private tax business out of his commission office and viewed pornography on his official computer.
¶And federal antiterrorism grants were misused or could not be accounted for, calling for further investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.
The failings ranged from the critical to the comical. The report said the commission abandoned background checks on the longshoremen and stevedoring companies that unload ships, creating a critical breach in the nation’s security web. Instead, the report said, commission detectives spent their mornings parked in the commissioners’ designated parking spots in Lower Manhattan, guarding the spaces from interlopers.
The report said the agency became a patronage-laden favor bank where staff members took cars for personal use, a boat that was bought with federal money to fend off a “waterborne attack” mainly ferried V.I.P.’s during Fleet Week, and friends got friends jobs with high salaries and little work. One detective failed his entry exam twice, for example — until Commissioner Madonna himself slipped him the test, and he ended up turning in the highest score in the history of the commission.
The detective, James Sutera, later lied under oath about the matter and tried to get colleagues to falsely back him up, the report said, adding that the case had been referred to the Manhattan district attorney for a perjury investigation.
But Mr. Fisch said that new leadership under the current New York State commissioner, Ronald Goldstock, a director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force from 1981 to 1994, had since implemented changes.
jwm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/nyregion/12waterfront.html?_r=1&hp
August 12, 2009
Report Finds Corruption at Waterfront Watchdog
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, which was created in the 1950s to break the mob’s grip on the docks, became its own bastion of lawlessness, employing the same corrupt, self-serving methods of the pier-based gangsters it was supposed to pursue, investigators reported in a scathing report released Tuesday.
Top officials at the $11-million-a-year bistate agency divided spoils, helped cronies evade the law and thwarted security provisions meant to safeguard the port against terrorism, according to the report by the New York State inspector general, which came after a nearly two-year investigation that the commission had vainly sought to block in court.
As a result of the findings, virtually the entire executive staff has been ousted — including the New Jersey commissioner, Michael J. Madonna, a former police officer and union representative, it was announced Tuesday. The former New York commissioner, Michael C. Axelrod, also faulted for abuses, was not reappointed after his term ended last year. New leadership has since been put in place, officials said, and is in the process of instituting changes.
“It was an utter disaster when we stepped in,” the inspector general, Joseph Fisch, said in an interview, calling the state of affairs then “a remnant and continuation of the old waterfront.”
The “disaster” is captured in graphic terms in the 61-page report. Among the findings:
¶The commission’s general counsel, Jon Deutsch, also later fired, masterminded a scheme to conceal a felon’s ownership of a company convicted of federal racketeering charges so he could continue to operate on the waterfront.
¶The commission’s auditing director, Frank Nastasi, ran a private tax business out of his commission office and viewed pornography on his official computer.
¶And federal antiterrorism grants were misused or could not be accounted for, calling for further investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.
The failings ranged from the critical to the comical. The report said the commission abandoned background checks on the longshoremen and stevedoring companies that unload ships, creating a critical breach in the nation’s security web. Instead, the report said, commission detectives spent their mornings parked in the commissioners’ designated parking spots in Lower Manhattan, guarding the spaces from interlopers.
The report said the agency became a patronage-laden favor bank where staff members took cars for personal use, a boat that was bought with federal money to fend off a “waterborne attack” mainly ferried V.I.P.’s during Fleet Week, and friends got friends jobs with high salaries and little work. One detective failed his entry exam twice, for example — until Commissioner Madonna himself slipped him the test, and he ended up turning in the highest score in the history of the commission.
The detective, James Sutera, later lied under oath about the matter and tried to get colleagues to falsely back him up, the report said, adding that the case had been referred to the Manhattan district attorney for a perjury investigation.
But Mr. Fisch said that new leadership under the current New York State commissioner, Ronald Goldstock, a director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force from 1981 to 1994, had since implemented changes.
