By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
In a case out of the Sopranos, the FBI used tape recordings and informants to bust five guys for “conspiring to obstruct” a federal civil lawsuit in Brooklyn.
A criminal complaint, unsealed last week, said the civil lawsuit forced Keystone Renovations Corp. to pay a prevailing wage to employees. The company tried to retaliate against the workers who filed the suit, the government alleged.
In 2006, some of the defendants paid $15,000 to have someone throw acid on a female companion of one of the people who filed the the lawsuit, the charging papers alleged. She suffered first and second-degree burns.
Later the defendants agreed to pay $25,000 for each victim that was beaten, the U.S. Attorney’s Office alleged.
“Just give them a f— beating, legs…whatever they can, it would be the best thing,” one defendant told an informant who was recording the conversation. “It would be the best punishment, right?”
(For more on the recorded conversations and allegations, read the criminal complaint, FBI affidavit and the prosecutions’ letter to the judge.)
