To
hear federal prosecutors tell it, James Walsh was an outsider - an ambitious
striver with a seemingly insatiable need to prove himself as one of the guys.
His
drive to impress union colleagues in Ironworkers Local 401 led him first to
lead arson attacks on nonunion construction sites, and on Tuesday to a federal
courtroom. There, in a hearing before U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson,
Walsh admitted his role in one of the union members' most noted crimes, a
December 2012 attack on a Quaker meetinghouse construction site in Chestnut
Hill.
With
his plea to charges of racketeering conspiracy and arson, Walsh, 49, became the
latest union member lining up to admit guilt in an ongoing racketeering
conspiracy case against 12 of the group's members.
"I'm
pleading guilty to the charges the government put against me because I am
guilty of them," Walsh told the judge.
Also
Tuesday, union member Greg Sullivan, 49, pleaded guilty to participating in two
attacks, including one on a nonunion warehouse project in Southwest
Philadelphia with Walsh.
In
all, eight ironworkers have either pleaded guilty or acknowledged they intend
to do so. It remains unclear whether any have agreed to testify against their
fellow members, including the union's longtime head, Joseph Dougherty, who is
expected to take his case to trial next year.
In
many ways, Walsh stood apart from his union colleagues. He joined the union at
an older age than most. Unlike many members with long family histories as
ironworkers, Walsh's father or uncles had not been part of the profession. And
while others built camaraderie over after-work beers, Walsh, who had struggled
with alcohol and drug addiction in his youth, abstained.
Yet,
say prosecutors, there was at least one path to the union's inner circle that
remained open to him.
In
court filings, prosecutors allege that violence was woven into the fabric of
the union. Members threatened contractors who refused to hire union labor, and
those who held out could expect threats, violent picket lines, and mysterious
damage to their projects and equipment.
Union
members dubbed such attacks "nightwork," court documents say. And
those willing to take on such jobs for the group shot through the ranks.
Frequent
"nightworkers" landed plum assignments with long-term commitments and
ample opportunities for overtime from union bosses. Elected posts within the
group were won based on what acts of sabotage the candidates had committed for
the group.
It
was through violence that Walsh saw his ticket to the top.
He
"aspired to be a legend in the union - to commit acts which other
ironworkers only talk about doing," Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J.
Livermore wrote in Walsh's plea documents. He approached "nightwork"
with such zeal, others began to refer to him as the union's "big-time hit
man."
The
list of crimes he pleaded guilty to Tuesday included leading the 2012 attack on
the construction site of the meetinghouse - a project led by a nonunion
contractor. Walsh not only volunteered to send the builder a message, he also
recruited and led the team that sneaked into the site Dec. 20, cut its steel
beams with torches, and set a crane on fire.
As
police fanned out to investigate the crime that night, Walsh received a
congratulatory text message from a union higher-up. "Nice swing," it
read, according to court filings.
His
participation in a violent picket line outside the nonunion Goldtex Apartments
construction project in 2012 and another arson the next year at the warehouse
project in 2013 also earned him attention.
Yet
his efforts on behalf of the union apparently were not enough to secure him a
post on its board of trustees. When a vacancy opened in 2013, Walsh put his
name forward but lost.
In
a wiretapped conversation quoted in his plea documents, Walsh complained about
being passed over by a suburban union operative who he felt did not have to
work as hard to intimidate contractors there.
Still,
Walsh persisted. Within a month, he was plotting another arson, at a
construction site in Malvern.
On
Oct. 12, 2013, he and two others approached their target with acetylene torches
in hand. This time, the FBI was waiting.
Walsh
faces a minimum prison sentence of 15 years at a hearing set for January.
Source:
Philly.com
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