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including the admission of “belonging” to DeFeo, stating, “As far as Pete’s concerned, you know this…the carpenters are his. Let’s face it, including myself.” 31
    Maritas was also co-chairman of Ed Koch’s labor committee during his 1977 mayoral bid. Koch later appointed Maritas to the Public Development Corporation, a city agency that develops building projects, but in 1981, he was brought up on charges of racketeering, extortion and taking payoffs to permit nonunion members to work on construction sites. Before Maritas had a chance to stand trial, he disappeared.
    Peter DeFeo retired in the late 1980s and passed away of natural causes at ninety-one.
    D IOGUARDI , J OHN
169 Forsyth Street, 1920
Alias: Johnny Dio
Born: April 29, 1914, New York City (b. Dioguardi, Giovanni Ignazio)
Died: January 12, 1979, Lewisberg, Pennsylvania (federal prison)
Association: Luciano/Genovese crime family
    Johnny Dio, as Dioguardi is best known, was a prominent and well-respected Mafioso who wielded great power over New York City’s garment industry and was instrumental in Jimmy Hoffa’s bid for presidency of the Teamsters union.
    Along with his two brothers, Frankie and Thomas, Dioguardi was raised in a mob family and introduced to the Mafia as a teenager. Their father, Giovanni Dioguardi, was killed in August 1930 in what authorities called a mob-associated hit, 32 and his uncle was Giacomo “Jimmy Doyle” Plumeri, a Lucchese crime family member.
    By the early 1930s, young Johnny Dio was working for a Plumeri crew as a labor-slugger in the garment industry, a job that introduced him to the politics of the labor unions he would eventually control.
    In March 1937, Dioguardi was sentenced to three years in Sing Sing prison after pleading guilty to charges of extortion, conspiracy and racketeering. After his release, he spent a short time in Allentown, Pennsylvania, before returning to New York City.
    James Riddle Hoffa (February 14, 1913–?) was a powerful midwestern Teamster leader who had established the Central States Pension Fund in the early 1950s, a fund that subsequently allowed the Mafia access to millions of dollars in union pensions. 33 (It is said that much of the mob’s casino activity in the 1950s was funded by the illegal Teamster pension program.) In a bid for the Teamster presidency, Hoffa’s greatest obstacle was the support of New York City unions, so he sought to form alliances with Anthony Corallo and John Dioguardi.
    Hoffa was introduced to Dioguardi by Paul “Red” Dorfman, president of the Waste Handler’s Union. Dioguardi was not a Teamster, but several influential United Auto Workers–American Federation of Labor (UAW-AFL) locals were under his control, and he’d had a working relationship with the organization since the 1930s. Corallo outright owned one Teamster local and controlled several others. 34
    Dioguardi spent sixty days in jail for tax evasion in 1954, which led to his removal from the UAW-AFL, but by December 1955, he and Corallo had chartered seven “paper” Teamster locals—phony organizations with the minimum required membership—which helped Hoffa win the presidency in 1956, a position he would hold until 1971.
    That same year, Dioguardi was indicted, 35 along with five associates, for conspiring to injure a federal racketeering trial witness named Victor Riesel, who had sulfuric acid thrown in his face by Abraham “Leo” Telvi on April 5, while exiting the old Lindy’s Restaurant at 1655 Broadway. Reisel was a popular labor journalist who was outspoken against the mob’s racketeering operations and had finished a radio interview critical of local union leaders just hours before the attack took place.
    Telvi, who was himself injured in the assault when the acid splashed on his face as well, sought to be compensated above what was agreed for the hit. The twenty-year-old hired thug apparently felt that Dioguardi, who had recruited him for the job, would be easy to shakedown