A federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., has dismissed a civil racketeering lawsuit against the International Longshoremen's Association.
Federal prosecutors, using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 (RICO), were seeking to dismiss union leaders and put the dockworker's union under government control.
Judge I. Leo Glasser handed down his 109-page decision Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, saying the government had failed in efforts" to provide a 'short and plain' statement of its entitlement to relief" and therefore must be dismissed.
He said the government could file an amended complaint in the next 60 days.
Glasser used his decision to also address what he said were "several other shortcomings in the government's allegations," saying the government's contention that a broad "waterfront enterprise" consisting of mobsters, co-conspirators placed in key positions at the ILA and other unions conspiring to control the New York and Miami waterfront was flawed.
"This court will not abet the government's effort to stretch the concept of a racketeering enterprise beyond all recognition in order to bring various otherwise disinterested parties within its scope, even for the worthwhile purpose of combating the influence of organized crime on the waterfront," Glasser wrote.
The ILA said it was "delighted" with the decision and claimed the case was "based on outdated stereotypes of the ILA, was an insult to ILA members, and never should have been brought."
The government had alleged 15 acts of racketeering undertaken by some or all of the racketeering defendants between 1995 and 2002. — Chris Dupin