A shop steward for the Bricklayers Union has been charged with taking illegal payments in exchange for allowing nonunion laborers to work at a Brooklyn school-construction site, officials said.
Russell Argila, 39, who works for Bricklayers Local 1, was videotaped taking envelopes stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash during an undercover US Labor Department racketeering probe, officials say.
Argila was released by a judge on $100,000 bond.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors say that an informant secretly tape-recorded Argila discussing payments he had demanded for turning a blind eye to the nonunion laborers.
His attorney, Michael Hughes, indicated in court he plans to fight the case.
Argila’s arrest is connected to a larger federal probe into executives at a contracting firm who were charged with defrauding the city’s School Construction Authority of more than $32 million.
Prosecutors say the firm employed nonunion laborers at various SCA-funded construction projects, paid the workers lower salaries than the amount mandated by state contracts and pocketing the difference, officials said.