A federal oversight board announced yesterday that it had charged the top Teamster official in New York, Anthony Rumore, with improper behavior for inviting a Teamster leader ousted on corruption charges to speak at a union meeting in Miami Beach.þþThe board accused Mr. Rumore, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' Joint Council 16 in New York, of violating union rules by inviting Barry Feinstein, who was once one of New York's most politically influential union leaders. The charges against Mr. Rumore could lead to his suspension from the union and conceivably even to his expulsion.þþMr. Feinstein agreed to lifetime banishment from the union in 1993 after the oversight board, known as the Independent Review Board, charged him with embezzling $391,246 and illegally receiving $99,341 in interest-free loans. Mr. Feinstein neither admitted nor denied the embezzlement charges, which accused him of using union money for a luxury apartment, travel and other personal expenses.þþMr. Feinstein headed Local 237, the nation's largest Teamsters local, and was president of the New York Joint Council, which represents more than 100,000 teamsters in the metropolitan area. þþIn the charges, the oversight board's chief investigator noted that Teamster rules bar union officials like Mr. Rumore from associating with leaders who were ousted in corruption scandals. The review board was set up as part of a program of intensive government oversight to which the union agreed in 1989 to settle a federal racketeering lawsuit asserting that mobsters controlled the Teamsters. þþThe board charged Mr. Rumore specifically with breaching his fiduciary duty to the union by letting Mr. Feinstein speak at a Teamsters educational seminar at the Fontainebleau Hotel, without first determining whether it was proper to let a banished official speak.þþÿRumore failed to conduct the most rudimentary inquiry and deliberately closed his eyes to apparent problems,ÿ the board wrote.þþMr. Rumore's lawyer, Thomas P. Puccio, said his client did nothing wrong. He criticized the oversight board, asking how it could seek to punish Mr. Rumore for inviting Mr. Feinstein, a respected civic leader who is on the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and is chairman of the Consortium for Worker Education, a government-backed nonprofit organization that provides worker training.þþIn Miami Beach, Mr. Feinstein spoke about the consortium's work, which has focused in the past year on retraining workers who lost jobs after the Sept. 11 attacks.þþÿIt's one thing to go after someone for associating with an organized crime member,ÿ Mr. Puccio said. ÿTo seek to punish my client for allowing him to speak for 10 minutes at a seminar about what his organization does is really stretching it.ÿþþThe oversight board asked the Teamsters' executive board to adjudicate the charges.þþAt the Florida meeting, two New York Teamster leaders, Gary LaBarbera, president of Local 282, and Daniel Kane Jr., president of Local 202, raised objections with Mr. Rumore to Mr. Feinstein's appearance.þþThe oversight board said Mr. Rumore had told Teamster leaders that he would not let Mr. Feinstein speak if anyone objected, but then changed his mind. The board criticized Mr. Rumore for not asking knowledgeable authorities, like the union's lawyers, about whether it was appropriate for Mr. Feinstein to speak.þþÿI don't understand how Mr. Rumore can be disciplined for not investigating sufficiently the ability of Barry Feinstein to speak,ÿ Mr. Puccio said.þþþ
Source: NY Times
