Robert Rabbit, Sr.

Robert "Bobby" Rabbit, Sr. (b. 7/24/1936) was a powerful New York City labor leader in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,..

Early Days in Brooklyn

Rabbit grew up in Brooklyn, the son of a truck driver. He dropped out of Erasmus Hall H.S., and went to work as a helper in Teamsters Local 707. A year later, he was working on West Street in Manhattan, for Custom Cartage, a Teamsters Local 807 company. In 1967, Rabbit became a shop steward, and was later elected a Union Trustee, and appointed as a local business agent. Rabbit owed much of his success to his close relationship with Local patriarch, Joseph Mangan.

Climbing Teamster Ranks

Eventually, Rabbit became the business agent in charge of hiring at the New York Coliseum, the predecessor to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. In that position, Rabbit began to appoint members and associates of organized crime into lucrative no-show and no-work jobs, and fostered an environment of lawlessness, where trucks and shipments were often hijacked, with Rabbit receiving a cut of the proceeds.

Javits Center Influence and Organized Crime Activities

After the construction of the Javits Center, Local 807 and Rabbit, controlled hiring of Teamsters there. Rabbit appointed his two sons, Robert Jr. and Michael, to Union positions and than they were elected by the membership. Members of the union apparently didn't complain because of the threat of violence and the fact that they did a great job of representing their members. They had the finest negotiated teamster contracts in the United States. Bob McDonnell, a business agent for the local, says a popular saying around the union hall was "Don't make waves." After Mr. McDonnell questioned some of the practices, he recalls one business agent asking him, "Do you want to end up dead?"

Convictions For Labor Racketeering and Murder

On February 7, 1984, Rabbit and associate Ernest Veneziano, another associate of organized crime, went to look for a drug dealer who had not stopped selling drugs to Rabbit's son. The men went to the dealer's, Sammy Cruz's, Borough Park home, but got into a dispute with Cruz's stepfather Salvatore Sciortino. Rabbit and Veneziano abducted Sciortino, and stabbed the man to death, dumping the body on a Brooklyn street. Rabbit, now secretary-treasurer of Local 807, pleaded guilty to 2nd degree manslaughter and received a prison sentence of two-to-six years and did 8 months for that crime. The judge in the case sdaid that Rabbitt should have received a medal and reduced his sentence. After finishing his prison stint for the murder, Rabbit got into a fistfight with Bonanno crime family soldier and Local 807 member John "Porky" Zancocchio after an enraged Zancocchio confronted him about being dropped from Javits Center hiring for two-months.

Upon his release from prison, Rabbit resumed control of Local 807, and appointed Bonanno soldier Armando Rea as a Javits Center shop steward. In the early-1990s, IBT President Ron Carey began to seek removing the Rabbits from Local 807. At a press conference, Michael Rabbit confronted Carey, exclaiming that "Local 807 is probably one of the cleanest unions in the United States," Rabbitt yelled at the podium. "Every official of that union has been questioned, and no charges have been brought, because this union is clean."

In 1992, New York County District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau indicted Rabbit, and Rabbit eventually pleaded guilty to falsifying business records, and served a 1 1/2 years in prison and was officially banned from union activities.

Ouster From Labor Union

Carey investigated Local 807's domination of the Javits Center and its questionable hiring practices, and determined that at least 11 of the 77 Local 807 members regularly employed at the center had ties to organized crime, and at least another 10 were relatives of Bobby Rabbit. While not allowed to be a union officer, Rabbit and his son Michael became general foremen at the Javits Center, which are technically non-union positions. Ex-federal prosecutor Charles Carberry was appointed to remove organized crime influence from Javits Center Unions, such as the Carpenters and Teamsters. The first order of business for Carberry was to oust the Rabbits. Carberry claimed that Rabbit's hiring lists were corrupted with nepotism, with the lucrative Javits Center Teamsters jobs paying $ 21 to $ 43 an hour, with extraordinary fringe benefits going to workers on hiring lists laden with friends and relatives of mobsters and Local 807 officials.