Sometime in 1980, the FBI subpoenas Donald Trump during an investigation into John Cody, a racketeer and New York mob associate working with Trump and Roy Cohn. Cody is president of the Teamsters Local 282 union, which is providing concrete for the construction of Trump Tower.
By now, New York’s crime families play a role in all aspects of the contracting industry, from labor unions and government inspections to garbage removal. Their grip on the Cement and Concrete Workers union is so strong that authorities nicknamed their operation “the concrete club.” Cody has been in bed with organized crime for awhile. Now he’s in bed with Donald Trump.
Investigators have evidence that Cody threatened to end or delay construction on Trump Tower unless “The Donald” agrees to give him a free apartment in the finished building. This is a common scheme of Cody’s.
Trump denies making such a deal, but, when construction is finished, he sets aside three units for one of Cody’s friends.
A female friend of Cody’s, a woman with no job who attributed her lavish lifestyle to the kindness of friends, bought three Trump Tower apartments right beneath the triplex where Donald lived with his wife Ivana. Cody stayed there on occasion and invested $500,000 in the units. Trump, Barrett reported, helped the woman get a $3 million mortgage without filling out a loan application or showing financials.
Politico
In 1989, the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice says Cody “was universally acknowledged to be the most significant labor racketeer preying on the construction industry in New York.”
Trump and Cody were introduced by Roy Cohn. Both Cohn and Cody have a working relationship with the Gambino crime family.
External Sources
The Washington Post (Archived)
Photo: Getty, via Business Insider
