Top LI steamfitters, plumbers union officials plead guilty in bribery case

Eleven top union officials, most hailing from Long Island, have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from accepting more than $100,000 in bribes and illegal cash payments from a construction contractor, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced.

The officials were charged after a two-year wiretap investigation that began in Suffolk County. They were charged with accepting the payments between October 2018 and October 2020.

Two of the defendants, Kevin McCarron and Robert Egan, pleaded guilty Monday before U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon to violating the Taft-Hartley Act, a law that limits the power and labor practices of unions.

Officials said the remaining defendants, including the former president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council, James Cahill, previously pleaded guilty to either honest services fraud conspiracy or violation of the Taft-Hartley Act.

"The defendants exploited their union positions and hard-working union members to feed their own greed," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

Cahill, who represented more than 200,000 unionized construction workers across the state, was also a member of the Executive Council for the New York State American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, as well as a union representative of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the U.S. and Canada.

Federal prosecutors said that during the conspiracy Cahill accepted $44,500 in bribes from the contractor, cited in documents only as "Employer-1" — payments "usually stuffed in evelopes" and "handed off inside the restrooms of restaurants." As part of his plea agreement, Cahill admitted having previously accepted "at least approximately $100,000 of additional bribes" from that contractor in connection with his union positions, they said.

The 2020 indictment charging Cahill and the 10 others alleged the defendants agreed to accept dozen of bribes "to corruptly influence the construction industry at the expense of labor unions and their own members who they're supposed to be representing."

Those unions included the Ronkonkoma-based Plumbers Local Union #200 of the United Association, which has jurisdiction over plumbing work in Nassau and Suffolk, as well as the Long Island City-based Steamfitters Local 638, a union with jurisdiction over pipe fitting on Long Island and in New York City.

Cahill, of upstate Pearl River, faces up to 20 years in prison for honest services fraud conspiracy at sentencing on March 7.

Arthur Gipson, of Kings Park, a business agent of Local 200, could face five years in prison for violating the Taft-Hartley Act at his sentencing on March 9.

Seven defendants — Christopher Kraft, of Commack; Patrick Hill, of Rockville Centre; Matthew Norton, of Syosset; William Brian Wangerman, of Atlantic Beach; Jeremy Sheeran, of Astoria; Andrew McKeon, of Astoria; and McCarron, of Lindenhurst — were business agents with Local 638, while Egan, of Kings Park, was the Secretary-Treasurer of Local 638. Scott Roche, of Woodbridge, New Jersey, served as a business agent at large.

Roche and McCarron face up to 12 months in prison, while Egan, McKeon, Sheeran, Wangerman and Norton all face five years.

Hill and Kraft face up to 20 years in prison for honest services fraud conspiracy.

In a statement, Suffolk District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said: "Through their greed and self-dealing, these defendants betrayed the hard-working members of their respective unions, and undermined the protections meants to be afforded by organized labor."

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”