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Topic: Jeeze...this just came through on the news.
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Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man
Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 11-07-2003 09:36 PM
Maybe this belongs in the Ground Level Forum. If it does, I hope the moderators place it there.
I was not aware this was happening. This is a sad day indeed. In addition to the loss of my Beagle, I read something like this of our industry....something I have been a part of for over 35 years. What in the hell is happening to our industry that I loved so well? It truly makes me sick.
From the Associated Press:
CHICAGO -- Seven members of a movie projectionists union were charged along with two associates Friday with trying to settle labor disputes by setting fires and carrying out beatings at theaters in 10 states.
Federal prosecutors said the crimes were intended to scare officials of three major theater chains into giving in. In two cases, theater managers were beaten - with a pipe in one case, with a bat in another.
The 15 fires and other crimes took place from New York to Texas, and blazes were started with moviegoers in the theaters, forcing mass evacuations, according to the indictment.
The covers of CDs by the pop group Chicago were left at the scene of some out-of-town fires "just so the notion of the city of Chicago would be planted in the minds of the theater owners," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said.
Four defendants - including Albin C. Brenkus, 48, business manager of Chicago-based Local 110 of the movie projectionists union - were arrested early Friday by federal agents.
Prosecutors said all seven men were Local 110 members. They said the two others, Peter Macari and Michael Rossi, were promised membership as a reward for the August 1999 baseball-bat beating of a suburban Chicago theater manager.
Marcari and Rossi are currently serving state prison sentences in connection with the beating. Police identified them through DNA found on cigarette butts they dropped at the scene of the attack.
A woman who answered the telephone at Local 110 in Chicago said there was no one available for comment on the charges.
Brenkus was also charged with obstruction of justice. He allegedly told another suspect that if subpoenaed by a grand jury, he should say "he don't know nobody" and "don't know nothing."
"It's only an indictment - it's just an allegation," said Robert Clarke, a lawyer for Brenkus.
Vincent Pagano, a lawyer for Keith Dutton, one of the other men arrested, said the four years it took to investigate indicated that the government's case was weak.
"It's going to be difficult for the government to prove," he said.
The fires and assaults occurred at theaters owned by AMC Entertainment, Cinemark U.S.A. and Loews Cineplex Entertainment.
Fifteen fires were set using bags or cups filled with chlorine and brake fluid, prosecutors said. In five other attempts, the combination caused smoke but no fire.
Seven attacks were in Illinois, with others in Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.
The suspects were described as members or prospective members of the Motion Picture Projectionists, Operators and Video Technician Local 110 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees of the United States and Canada.
The union has an image, acquired decades ago, of corruption and alleged mob links. In the early 1980s, the Chicago Crime Commission said at least 24 relatives of "reputed hoodlums" held ghost jobs with the union.
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