Ex-Union rep pleads guilty in scheme

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - A key player in a labor union kickback scheme pleaded guilty to conspiracy Wednesday afternoon in federal court.

Forty-four year-old Harold Tillinghast Jr. of Cranston agreed to the single count in exchange for a recommended lighter prison sentence from prosecutors. As part of the deal however, Tillinghast will have to testify against his two co-defendants.

Potentially bad news for Gerald Diodati and Nicholas Manocchio, both of Cranston and also charged with labor conspiracy.

Tillinghast is a former organizer for the Laborers International Union of North America, Manocchio was his boss.

According to court filings, FBI agents set up a fake construction firm called Hemphill Construction in a Johnston shopping plaza to try and get construction work in Rhode Island.

Investigators say Diodati, a contractor, paid Tillinghast 25-hundred in cash in an effort to win a demolition contract at the Rising Sun Mills condo project in Providence.

Revealed in court Wednesday, prosecutors say Tillinghast also delivered a 2,000 dollar kickback payment to Manocchio from Diodati. The cash was stuffed in a Christmas card and handed off at a Cranston fast-food restaurant.

The feds recorded thousands of hours of wiretapped conversations and charged the trio in 2008. Both Diodati and Manocchio have pleaded not guilty.

Tillinghast is scheduled to be sentenced on September 18th, giving him time to testify at a Spetermber 8th trial against his co-defendants. The maximum sentence is five years in prison and a 250-thousand dollar fine.

Manocchio is the nephew of Luigi "Baby Shacks" Manocchio, the reputed head of the Patriarca crime family.