Sources: Teamster film crew tied to R.I. gangsters

By Jack Sullivan

August 8, 2000 Web posted at: 5:29 PM EDT (2129 GMT)

BOSTON, Massachusetts (The Boston Herald) -- Mob-connected Providence Teamsters, including a convicted double murderer and members of Rhode Island's Hell's Angels, have been handed high-paying jobs on movies made in Massachusetts while longtime local union drivers are passed over, sources said yesterday.

In addition, officials from Boston's Local 25, which has jurisdiction over union members working on films in Massachusetts and northern New England, omit names of some of the drivers with criminal backgrounds when final drivers lists are submitted at the end of shooting, according to sources and records.

The revelations bolster claims by union insiders that connected criminals and ex-cons are taking over the lucrative New England movie business while rank and file union members are shunted aside into lower-paying positions.

Sources also said many of the drivers sent here from Rhode Island do not have the required class A commercial driver's license needed to operate large trucks and trailers. Most of the chosen drivers get the plum positions - which pay at least $2,000 a week plus hundreds in cash per diems - of driving vans to ferry actors and other workers to and from the set locations, according to insiders.

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Sources said the Rhode Island men are sent to work in Massachusetts because of a close relationship between Local 25 president George W. Cashman and Stu Mundy, Cashman's counterpart in Providence, even though the Ocean State's union comes under New York jurisdiction.

Cashman, whose union is the focus of a federal investigation of alleged shakedowns of filmmakers, did not return a call for comment yesterday.

Mundy, who said he's known Cashman ``for a long time,'' declined to say why his members are working in Boston and refused to comment on their criminal backgrounds or alleged Mob ties.

``All I know is that the people who work the movies are Teamsters,'' said Mundy.

Anthony Parrillo, 48, of Providence, released on parole three years ago for the 1977 slaying of two men in Rhode Island, is currently working on the Farrelly brother's movie ``Osmosis Jones'' filming on the South Shore despite his not having a class A commercial license.

Parrillo, who allegedly had ties to the now-defunct Patriarca crime family, runs the movie crew for Providence-based Local 251, a similar position to that of Local 25's James P. Flynn, a convicted criminal with alleged Mob associations who is a main target of the federal investigation.

In addition to Parrillo, who was Alec Baldwin's driver during the filming of the movie ``Outside Providence,'' other Rhode Island union members involved in Massachusetts-based films are:

Ronnie Carter, one of the leaders of Rhode Island's Hell's Angels.

Jeff Chakoian, of Seekonk, brother of a convicted hit man for Raymond L.S. Patriarca who also allegedly has ties to Providence mobsters.

Danny Allen, a convicted gambler from Providence also with alleged Mob ties.

Sources said other alleged former Mob members and Hell's Angels with minimal union seniority have also found regular work on movies in both states.

Mundy dismissed the allegations as coming from ``disgruntled'' members. He said he established a seniority list of movie crew drivers based on when the person signed up for the film unit, not overall union membership.

``If another local is short for manpower and we get called, we give them the list based on the way they fall on our seniority list,'' Mundy said.

Sources also said yesterday the Providence local was the focus of a Department of Justice investigation about a year and a half ago regarding its members work on the Steven Spielberg movie ``Amistad,'' which was filmed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Mundy, Parrillo, and at least two other union officials were deposed in Boston during the probe run by the Independent Review Board, which was set up by the Justice Department to oversee alleged illegal activity by Teamsters members, Mundy confirmed.

Members of Local 25's movie crew have been the focus of a yearlong probe by a federal grand jury and investigators from the Department of Labor's racketeering unit for allegedly shaking down independent and studio film executives.

Officials are looking into charges that filmmakers were intimidated into hiring union drivers, forced or coerced into renting equipment from Flynn and other union members, and padded overtime and expense accounts.

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