Letters
Letters The Ickes Files The recent article by William McGowan ["The Mob and the Deputy Chief of Staff," July/August] is riddled with numerous falsehoods, errors, omissions, and distortions. Chief...
...I say "mistaken" because several years ago Oregon changed its laws to make adult holders of drivers licenses eligible for jury duty...
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...Fact: federal wiretap evidence at DeRoss' trial in which Paul Castellano, then-leader of the Gambino family, is overheard in a conversation that clearly suggests the union's Mafia ties...
...These are outrageous and unfounded allegations...
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...Fact: the mob-related felony conviction in the seventies of Anthony "Chickie" Amodeo, the union's president...
...Fact: a federal racketeering complaint that charged that officers of Local 100 had worked with organized crime "to reap enormous profits at the expense of union membership," and which culminated in a 1992 consent decree under which the union was taken over by federal trustees and its officers agreed to desist from union work for the rest of their lives...
...It is about a wealthy, politically prominent lawyer who continued to represent this union for many years in the face of obvious signs that it was controlled by one of the most vicious organized crime syndicates in the country...
...It is Foreign Policy...
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...The author replies: It is Harold Ickes' cynical response, and not my recent article about him, that is full of omissions and distortions...
...In Multnomah County, where Portland is located and 25 percent of the population resides, only one in nine potential jurors who receive a summons report for duty...
...The question is whether a lawyer who does so should be rewarded with the privilege of being named a top advisor to the president of the United States...
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...Jury Call I had completed two weeks of jury duty myself when your issue arrived, so I was keenly interested in Daniel Franklin's article ["The Menendez Quandary," July/August], I found it excellent and quite accurate, based on my own experience...
...Phil Keisling Oregon Secretary of State Portland, Oregon Correction Last month's Monthly Journalism Award citation incorrectly identified Thomas Omestad's publication...
...The lawyer in question, David Wright, made money-winning setdements for members of the union whose cases Ickes, for dubious reasons, refused to handle...
...20009...
...namely, the fact that the prosecutor who investigated this matter advised in writing that I was never a target of that investigation...
...Indeed, the special counsel for the New York City Department of Investigation, who also investigated that matter, didn't think it necessary to call me as a witness or to mention me in his report...
...Second class postage paid at Mechanicsburg, PA...
...I do take issue with Franklin's point about drawing jurors exclusively from voter registration rolls...
...Fact: the felony racketeering conviction of the union's vice president, John DeRoss, in the mid-eighties...
...Chief among these is the false charge that I and my firm undertook improper or possibly illegal activity on behalf of Local 100 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, and the unfair innuendo of the title that I was somehow tied to organized crime...
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...All other knowledge will come secondhand—through friends, colleagues, movies, and media accounts...
...What I did say was that Ickes stonewalled in an action that was deemed a significant breach of the law, even if it was never prosecuted...
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...But these minor errors should not detract from the piece's main point: That, for a senior White House official, Harold Ickes seems embarrassingly blind to serious ethical issues...
...Your reporter ignored facts that were called to his attention concerning the investigation into Mayor Dinkins' transfer of stock to his son...
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...Jurors here get all of $10 a day (plus six cents per mile), and many businesses will not cover a person's salary...
...As the court-appointed investigator who looked into all the facts surrounding our representation of the union concluded, there was "no evidence of criminal misconduct on the part of Harold Ickes or [my firm] Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, P.C____" nor any basis for any other claims against us...
...NW, Washington, DC 20009 (202) 462-0128...
...Ickes complains that "the author does not even get my name right...
...I never said that Ickes was a target of the investigation into Mayor Dinkins' questionable stock transfer to his son...
...Given the space, I could spend more time detailing many other inaccuracies in the article, big and small...
...All rights reserved...
...True enough, the court-appointed investigator who examined Mr...
...Not surprisingly, your reporter chose to minimize the findings of the court-appointed investigator in favor of misleading and biased speculation provided to him by an individual who made money litigating against myself and the union...
...In my capacity as Oregon's chief elections officer, I've discovered that a major reason that many people don't register to vote is out of the mistaken belief this will prevent their being called to jury duty...
...Many of them were waiters, dishwashers and bus-boys who spoke little English—precisely the class of people for whom labor lawyers are supposed to fight...
...Some of the errors were even comical...
...three years, $98...
...Yet the effect is quite similar...
...It's distressingly true that juries are drawn from an all-too-small segment of the population...
...Oregon, unlike other states, has few statutory exemptions that confer an automatic "out" for potential jurors...
...as when my two former partners, one a lifelong Republican, and the other a resident of Harlem, were both anointed by the author— falsely, in each case—as Chairmen of the Democratic Party in Suffolk County, Long Island, where Democrats are something of an endangered species...
...There is very little chance that a savvy lawyer like Ickes did not know what his clients were up to...
...But according to this investigator, whom I interviewed at length, this inquiry did not delve into the question of whether Ickes had any knowledge of wrongdoing, a question that is still open...
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...Ickes' contention that I favored "misleading and biased speculation" provided to me "by an individual who made money litigating against myself and the union" is both misleading and snide...
...air mail delivery add $32...
...The author does not even get my name right or the simplest details of my personal history...
...I am also sorry that I mistakenly referred to one of his former partners as a former Suffolk County Democratic Party boss and that a typo, combined with a copy editing error, made it look as if I were saying that Basil Patterson, another partner of Ickes, was a party boss from Long Island too...
...At bottom, the article is based on the notion—antithetical to our legal system—that the mere fact that I and my firm represented a union and its members in more than 1,800 arbitrations and proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board taints me with the charge of "mob," along with my client...
...I am sorry that I referred to him as Harold Ickes, Jr...
...The vast majority of citizens who don't serve as jurors will likely only have one kind of direct experience with the justice system—as victims of a crime...
...Jurors drawn from just a small slice of the general population cause another problem that Franklin didn't discuss, but which I've thought about a lot after sitting through two weeks of testimony and deliberations...
...Harold Ickes Washington, D.C...
...instead of his preferred moniker, Harold M. Ickes...
...Suffice it to say, however, that I hope the next time your publication chooses to do an article making such serious allegations, you will find a reporter who will pay more attention to obtaining a full, fair, and accurate record of the underlying facts...
...two years, $72...
...Of course, lawyers should not be baiTed from representing underworld figures and the legitimate enterprises they control...
...Many don't even bother to call, and most are excused for "hardship" reasons—e.g., they can't afford time off from work...
...and possessions: one year, $38...
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...But I wanted to expand on one point, and take one small issue with another...
...If our goal is to broaden service as widely as possible, we shouldn't just strive to eliminate prejudices and tighten up exemptions—we should truly reach out to as many citizens as possible...
...Ickes' work for the union did conclude that there was "no evidence of criminal misconduct on the part of Harold Ickes or [his firm] Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein...
...For reprint rights for all or part of an article call Albert Lukban at (202) 462-0128...
...At bottom my piece is not about Ickes' work before the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of his client, Local 100 of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers International Union...
Vol. 26 • January 1994 • No. 10
