Attilio Bitondo

Attilio Bitondo (born June 20, 1928), also known as "Tillio", was a New York City labor leader and an associate in the Genovese crime family in the crew of powerful Manhattan captain Vincent DiNapoli.

As Vice-President of Carpenters Union Local 257, Bitondo had jurisdiction over construction on the East Side of Manhattan. Bitondo and Local President Eugene Hanley systematically extorted New York City drywall contractors for the Genovese family. The two union leaders also engaged in bid rigging and bribery.

In the mid-1980s, Judge Stephen Crane authorized the New York State Organized Crime Task Force to wiretap the Local 257 Office telephones located at 157 East 25th Street in Manhattan.

The resulting intercepted telephone calls would be used as evidence against Bitondo, Hanley and other union and organized crime figures, and also demonstrated the grip the men had over the City's construction industry. In on telephone call, contractor Mario Marsillo indicated to Bitondo and Hanley that he was using non-union workers on an East Side job because he had "given a cup of coffee" to Local 608 official John O'Connor, however, the East Side was Bitondo's jurisdiction, and the Genovese crime family was not happy. Marsillo asked to "have a cup of coffee" — apparently a euphemism for a bribe — with Bitondo, but Bitondo refused, saying "This here we shoulda done two months ago had a cup of coffee." After Bitondo and Hanley discussed with Marsillo the picketing at his site because of his failure to sign the union agreement, Marsillo said "I tried to reach, reach out ", Hanley replied "You reached out to the wrong people Mario." Ultimately, Mario smartened up and paid the Local 257 bosses.

On October 13, 1987, Bitondo and four other Carpenters Union leaders, were indicted for extortion. They were accused of taking more than $100,000 from Manhattan contractors wanting to avert labor problems. One of the cooperating contractors testified that Bitondo approached him at a construction site with another man and threatened to throw him off the roof of the building if he didn't comply with his extortion demands. The affected projects included the World Financial Center at Battery Park City, Pier 17 at the South Street Seaport, the Equitable Life Assurance Building, and exhibits at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau stated that the indictments documented only about 10 percent of the payoffs that 17 cooperating contractors said they made; corroborative evidence could not be obtained to support all the allegations.

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