A trash dispute dredges up past

Fifteen years ago, reputed North Jersey mob figure and trash-industry impresario Carmine Franco was the defendant in a civil suit that spawned one of the classic lines in Philadelphia underworld history.

"Goodfellas don't sue goodfellas," a New York mobster said while urging attorney Salvatore Avena not to pursue a civil racketeering suit he had filed against Franco, his partner in a South Philadelphia trash company.

"Goodfellas kill goodfellas," the wiseguy added.

The FBI secretly recorded the comments in a broad investigation that devastated the Philadelphia mob in the early 1990s. Avena's lawsuit, which never figured in the criminal probe, was quietly settled a few years later.

Now Franco, 72, is back in court, the key defendant in a multimillion-dollar civil case that an attorney for the lead plaintiff says echoes the earlier suit. Barring an eleventh-hour settlement, the case is scheduled for a trial starting today in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.

Again, Franco is accused of civil racketeering in a trash-company dispute. And again, his alleged mob ties are part of the proceedings.

Franco, through his attorney, contended that the suit had no merit. And as he has repeatedly done, he denied any ties to organized crime.

The trial caps a legal battle that began in 2002 when Montgomery County businessman David Della sued, alleging that he and his partners lost their trash-recycling business and its valuable eight-acre site because of Franco's strong-arm tactics.

Among the witnesses Della is expected to call is Frederick Martens, a former executive director of the now-defunct Pennsylvania Crime Commission. In the late 1980s, that commission and the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation issued reports on the solid-waste industry that linked Franco to the powerful New York Genovese crime family.

In pretrial motions and in earlier comments, Franco's attorney, Salvatore Alfano, said the allegations were without foundation. Alfano has emphasized that Franco has never been convicted of an organized-crime-related charge.

In another motion, Alfano tried unsuccessfully to block Martens from testifying, contending his testimony would be based on crime reports more than a decade old and on hearsay and innuendo that have never been proved in court.

He also argued that the allegations of mob ties were designed to prejudice the jury against his client in a case that is, at its foundation, a dispute over a business deal gone bad.

Alfano does not dispute that Franco has a checkered past in the trash business, but said his problems were never connected with organized crime. Franco has been convicted twice for engaging in illegal business practices. In 1998, he was barred from ever again doing business in the trash industry in New Jersey.

Those facts, as well as the disputed mob ties, are expected to be introduced through testimony.

Neither Alfano nor Della's attorney, George Bochetto, would comment about the case last week. Both said their court filings spoke for themselves.

In the civil complaint that is the basis for the lawsuit, Bochetto accused Franco of engaging in a pattern of racketeering that included illegally siphoning cash from the business and eventually forcing Della and his partners out. He also has alleged that Franco alluded to his alleged mob ties in threatening Della, his partners and their families.

Bochetto is expected to argue that his client's losses have exceeded $5 million.

In the lawsuit, Della said he and his partners had borrowed $2.6 million from Franco in 1999 to buy a potential trash-transfer station in the 1600 block of South 49th Street along the Schuylkill. At the time, Della said, neither he nor his partners in American Waste Consultants Inc., Schaffer Disposal, and Philadelphia Waste Services Inc. were aware of Franco's alleged mob ties.

Della said he and his partners had agreed to a deal proposed by Franco, who insisted that he remain "invisible" and that the mortgage loan be made in his wife's name. Mary Franco, their son Angelo, and Franco's longtime secretary, Joanne Wiley, are also named as defendants.

The suit alleges that the original deal provided for a no-interest loan with the understanding that the outstanding principal would be repaid once Della had received approvals to turn the site into a trash-transfer station. At that point, Della said, he expected to sell the property at a profit. The profits were to be split equally between Della's group and Franco.

But, the suit alleges, Franco used the threat of foreclosing on the mortgage to take over the recycling business Della and his partners were running out of the location, placing his own people in charge and effectively busting out the business.

Mary Franco eventually foreclosed on the mortgage and took control of the property, the suit contends.

Della, who would not discuss specifics of the case, said last week that he had turned down settlement offers because he wanted to confront Franco in court.

Goodfella or not, Franco needs to be held accountable, Della said. "I'm not letting him get away with this," he said. "He's in the wrong zip code. He should have stayed in North Jersey, where they're scared of him."