Harold Daggett, the president of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), has a past that is as tumultuous as the recent labor dispute that threatened to plunge the U.S. into a shipping crisis.
Daggett, who led the ILA on a brief strike this week, was previously embroiled in a federal racketeering case linked to alleged mafia connections within the same union.
According to Fox News, Daggett was acquitted of these charges in 2005, a verdict his attorney and cousin, George Daggett, attributes to political motivations and flimsy evidence. "This trial was a farce," George Daggett told Fox News Digital. "People say to me, You did a great job. And I tell them a law school student couldve won that case. It was actually generated by the Waterfront Commission in New York, and they hated the union."
The trial, however, had fatal consequences. Co-defendant Larry Ricci, believed to be a captain in the Genovese family, vanished mid-trial and was later discovered dead in a car trunk outside a diner in New Jersey. "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 his disappearance, as reported by The Associated Press. Ricci was posthumously acquitted.
George Daggett accused the Waterfront Commission, a joint oversight operation between New York and New Jersey at the time, of pressuring federal prosecutors to pursue unprovable charges. Harold Daggett, for his part, denied the criminal allegations, claiming he was a victim of mob extortion. He testified that mobster George Barone had threatened his family at gunpoint. "I was so nervous, I urinated all over myself," he testified, as reported by the New York Post.
The prosecution alleged that Daggett had connections to the Genovese crime family dating back to 2000 and accused the union of providing no-show jobs to mobsters' relatives and offering kickbacks. The mob, in return, was supposed to safeguard the careers and salaries of corrupt ILA officials, according to the prosecution's claims.
Despite these allegations, the Justice Department failed to convince the jury of the defendants' guilt. George Daggett recounted how the case began after his cousin sought financial advice from a Catholic priest and placed $18 million in union funds under the supervision of the same money manager who worked with a church in Sparta, New Jersey.
The trial, according to George Daggett, was marked by the government's attempts to link the defendants to mobsters. "So at the trial, every time a mobsters 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 governments case ended, and I took Father Cassidys picture and I put it in the middle of all those mobsters. So that's the kind of trial it was."
The case, which centered on allegations of extortion and interference with commerce, took a turn for the worse when the prosecution's first witness was asked about the number of people he'd killed. "You knew for the government it was all downhill after that," George Daggett said.
Following Ricci's disappearance, his attorney continued to defend him at trial. "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] couldve been guilty."
While co-defendant Albert Cernadas pleaded guilty, Daggett, Ricci, and another ILA executive, Arthur Coffey, were found not guilty at trial. No one has been charged with Ricci's death, although federal prosecutors claimed they overheard a New Jersey mobster discussing the retrieval of the murder weapon with his son on wiretaps.
Harold Daggett ascended to the presidency of the union in 2011. FOX Business reported that he earned over $900,000 in union pay last year, owns a yacht and a luxury Bentley car, and resides in a sprawling mansion in Sparta, New Jersey.
The ILA, representing dockworkers on the East and Gulf Coasts, recently went on strike over what the union deems unfair pay amid soaring inflation, a rising minimum wage that has outpaced union raises, and the threat of job losses to automation. The union was demanding concessions from the U.S. Maritime Alliance before the two parties reached an agreement late Thursday.
The ILA, representing 45,000 U.S. workers at ports along the East and Gulf coasts, announced a provisional wage agreement that extends the current contract until January 15, 2025. "Things were rough back then [in 1977, when] we went on strike for 80 cents," Harold Daggett told FOX Business. "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 paralyzed the U.S. supply chain and cost the country's economy more than $4 billion a day, as per a JPMorgan analysis. The recent labor dispute and the union's demands underscore the growing tension between workers and corporations in an era of unprecedented profits and technological advancements that threaten traditional jobs.
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