NYPD, district attorney raid NY newspaper offices

Posted by Nestor Bailly on November 18, 2009 at 1:44 PM

The circulation and printing offices of several large national and local papers have been raided by investigators of the Manhattan district attorney's office in a union corruption investigation.

The ongoing investigation into the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union had offices of The New York Times in Queens, The New York Post and Daily News in Manhattan, and El Diario in Brooklyn searched by police officers looking for paperwork related to the union.

Representatives from the papers have stated that their organizations are not part of the investigation and were merely subject to search warrants seeking information regarding corruption allegations at the union. The Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union has 1,600 members and has considerable power over newspapers, who rely on union members to deliver their papers.

One of the allegations is that union leaders abused leadership rules to promote specifically favored insiders. No one has been arrested, and both the union and the NYPD declined to comment.

These allegations are not new; over ten years ago the district attorney charged the union of being under mob control, in 1992 the Post and Daily News offices were searched for similar reasons, and the union ex-president Douglas LaChance has been accused of being a mob family associate.

Sources: NYT, Guardian