Port strike longshoremen union boss linked to murdered mobster in 'farce' racketeering case he beat at trial

Harold Daggett, the president of the International Longshoremen's Association, which went on a brief strike this week in a labor dispute that could have created a shipping crisis across the U.S., was once cleared of federal racketeering charges in connection with alleged mafia ties to the same union.

Daggett's attorney, his cousin George Daggett, said the 2005 charges were politically motivated and based on weak evidence.

"This trial was a farce," he told Fox News Digital. "People say to me, ‘You did a great job.’ And I tell them a law school student could’ve won that case. It was actually generated by the Waterfront Commission in New York, and they hated the union."

The Justice Department failed to convict – but the case had deadly results. One of the co-defendants, a reputed Genovese family captain named Larry Ricci, disappeared mid-trial and was later found dead in the trunk of a car outside the Huck Finn Diner in Union, New Jersey, 20 miles west of New York City.

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"He's either been abducted — that is unlikely because he'd be far too difficult a person to keep hostage — or killed," Ricci's attorney Martin Schmukler told the court after he vanished mid-trial, The Associated Press reported at the time. He was later acquitted in absentia.

The commission, at the time a joint oversight operation between the states of New York and New Jersey, pressured federal prosecutors to bring charges it couldn't prove, George Daggett told Fox News Digital.

Harold Daggett denied the criminal accusations and said he was a victim of mob extortion. He testified that another mobster, George Barone, put a gun to his head and threatened to massacre his family. 

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"I was so nervous, I urinated all over myself," he testified at the time, according to a New York Post report. In a separate deposition, he denied knowing Barone was a Genovese "soldier," court documents show. 

Prosecutors had alleged that Daggett had ties to the Genovese crime family as far back as 2000, and the union has long been accused of handing no-show jobs to mobsters' relatives and providing kickbacks.

In exchange for union contracts, the mob was supposed to protect the careers and salaries of corrupt ILA officials, prosecutors alleged.

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The Justice Department couldn't convince jurors that the defendants were guilty of a crime.

George Daggett, the attorney, said the case began after his cousin asked a Catholic priest for financial advice and had $18 million in union funds placed under the supervision of the same money manager who worked with Our Lady of the Lake Church in Sparta, New Jersey.

"So at the trial, every time a mobster’s name was mentioned, the government had a big board, and they made a circle, [and] every time a mobster was mentioned, they put his picture up on this big board," he said. "The government’s case ended, and I took Father Cassidy’s picture and I put it in the middle of all those mobsters. So that's the kind of trial it was."

Although the case had to do with allegations of extortion and interference with commerce, prosecutors asked their first witness how many people he'd killed, Daggett said. 

"You knew for the government it was all downhill after that," he said.

After Ricci's disappearance, his attorney continued to work on his behalf at trial and clear his name.

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"What happened was it was not a good fact-pattern for the government, but the Waterfront Commission was pushing so hard that the eastern district said OK," Daggett told Fox News Digital. "Larry Ricci lost his life because, I guess, people thought that everybody was going to be guilty. There was no way [the verdict] could’ve been guilty."

Another co-defendant, Albert Cernadas pleaded guilty, but jurors went on to find Daggett, Ricci and Arthur Coffey, another ILA executive, not guilty at trial.

No one has been charged with Riccis' death, although federal prosecutors said they overheard on wiretaps a New Jersey mobster discussing the retrieval of the murder weapon with his son. That man, Michael Coppola, was sent to prison in another RICO case, which involved ILA kickbacks, identity fraud and the 1977 murder of a man named John "Johnny Cokes" Lardiere.

Prosecutors have also hinted that Ricci's murder opened a path for other suspected mobsters to corruptly profit off of the ILA, according to court documents.

Harold Daggett became the union's president in 2011. He has been purported to drive a yacht and a luxe Bentley car, live in a sprawling mansion in Sparta, New Jersey, and brought home more than $900,000 in union pay last year – $728,000 for being union president, and another $173,000 for his past role in local 1804-1, which he left in 2011, FOX Business reported. 

The ILA, which represents dock workers on the East and Gulf Coasts, went on strike this week in a dispute over what the union calls unfair pay against a backdrop of steep inflation, a rising minimum wage that has outpaced union raises, and the threat of losing human jobs to automation.

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The union was demanding concessions from the U.S. Maritime Alliance, or USMX, before the sides reached a deal late Thursday.

The ILA, which represents 45,000 U.S. workers at ports along the East and Gulf Coasts, said the sides reached a provisional wage agreement that extends the current contract until Jan. 15, 2025.

"Things were rough back then [in 1977, when] we went on strike for 80 cents," Harold Daggett told FOX Business Tuesday. "The companies only made like $5 to 10 million, but since COVID and before COVID 'til now, they're making billions and billions of dollars. It's a whole different story, but they don't want to share it. They'd rather see a fully automated terminal right here on the East Coast so they can make more money. They're money crazy."

The strike could have crippled the U.S. supply chain and cost the country's economy more than $4. billion a day, according to one JPMorgan analysis.