The ex-president of a local Longshoremen\u2019s union was sentenced to two years in prison Wednesday for taking $150,000 in bribes.\u00a0Glenn Blicht, 57, was convicted of using his powerful post as president of the International Longshoremen\u2019s Association Local 1964 to shake down the owner of a dry cleaning and laundry business. He spent the dirty money \u2014 which he referred to as \u201ctickets\u201d \u2014 on designer watches, custom clothing, sports tickets, meals at pricey restaurants, and cigars, the feds said.<\/p>\n
As the president of a labor union, Glenn Blicht\u2019s duty was to fight for his union members. Instead, he repeatedly sold them out in exchange for cash bribes, which he spent on luxury items. For this betrayal, he has been sentenced to federal prison, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. Blicht\u2019s downfall\u00a0came was due to the president of a laundry business becoming a cooperating witness.<\/p>\n
The ILA repped workers of the business, many of whom contributed $25 monthly dues while earning minimum wage, prosecutors. The bribery scheme began as early as 2009, when Blicht was an officer of the union. Around that time, Blicht crossed paths with the laundry owner and his wife in a restaurant, according to court papers. Blicht noted a ring the owner\u2019s wife was wearing. I could own that ring if your husband doesn\u2019t do the right thing, Blicht allegedly said. If you want to have a good union, you want to have peace, you\u2019ll take care of me, he said on a different occasion, prosecutors. Blicht got impatient ahead of a meeting with the laundry owner at a restaurant last July.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t screw me on this. Cause if you do this is not a threat, it\u2019s a promise \u2014 you\u2019re gonna regret it, he said in a call recorded by prosecutors. He was arrested after that meeting carrying a $10,000 bribe, prosecutors said. Blicht had argued he was a tireless advocate for workers and noted that an independent monitor determined the bribery did not affect his union\u2019s representation of its members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The ex-president of a local Longshoremen\u2019s union was sentenced to two years in prison Wednesday for taking $150,000 in bribes.\u00a0Glenn Blicht, 57, was convicted of using his powerful post as president of the International Longshoremen\u2019s Association Local 1964 to shake down the owner of a dry cleaning and laundry business. He spent the dirty money […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,1378],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13024,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022\/revisions\/13024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}