newjerseynewsroom.com

BY ADELE SAMMARCO

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. That well-known idiom holds true for organized crime members nicknamed, “The Poster Boy”, “The Consultant”, and “The Hidden Hand”, according to a scathing report issued Tuesday by the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation.

The 47-page report entitled, “Industrious Subversion – Circumvention of Oversight in Solid Waste and Recycling In New Jersey” finds that Garden State regulators do not do so well when it comes to monitoring and enforcing recycling state laws.

Call it art imitating life in the HBO series, “The Sopranos”, a fictional New Jersey family involved in the waste management industry with alleged ties to the DeCalvacante La Cosa Nostra crime organization, but for real-life mobster, Frank Lemmo, Jr., a.k.a. “The Poster Boy”, it was all in a day’s work.

Lemmo exploited several loopholes in New Jersey’s waste and recycling laws while lining his own pockets. NPR reports Lemmo has known ties to organized crime and is a convicted felon who Commissioners say, “profited richly from the industry while operating in plain sight without intervention from state regulators.”

According to the report, Lemmo ran a truck rental company that leased vehicles to a relative who collected recycling which earned him more than a million dollars a year. When regulators caught wind of Lemmo’s dirty dealings in 2009, Lemmo sold the business for more than $3 million dollars while still parking his trucks in a lot he owns, scoring more than $100,000 in rent each year.

Law enforcement authorities say Lemmo is just one of 30 criminals who found work in New Jersey after being permanently barred from the trash business in New York.

Investigators say Frank “The Consultant” Fiumefreddo, Sr. is exactly the type of individual targeted for disqualification by the intent of New Jersey’s solid waste licensing statute. A convicted felon who was booted from the garbage business for life by authorities in New York crossed the river to the Jersey side to continue his foul scented exploits by partnering in various business ventures with a member of the Gambino LCN crime family.

In 2001, the Fiumefreddo family took control of Central Jersey Waste & Recycling, Inc, a financially strapped waste hauling business in Hamilton Township, New Jersey. Soon after, Frank Fiumefreddo, Jr. formed a corporation, Premier Management Group, for the sole purpose of taking control of Central Jersey Waste & Recycling.

Officials say the parties signed an agreement that gave Premier Management power to “direct, operate and manage” Central Jersey for a decade for an annual “consulting fee” of $96,000. In return, Premier Management agreed to lend hundreds of thousands of dollars to Central Jersey at 10 percent interest. Fiumefreddo, Sr. was the source of most of that money, which was used by Premier Management to keep Central Jersey solvent until it became profitable.

The report goes onto state Gregory “The Hidden Hand” Gofreddo as a ‘salesman’ employed by Kevco Disposal and Recycling Corporation based in New Egypt, New Jersey that trades under the name of All-Star Recycling. The Commission determined that Goffredo actually controls the firm which is fronted by a relative who is president in name only.

Commission investigators found that Gofreddo regularly provided cash and free health benefits to the current acting boss of the Philadelphia mob.

Goffredo is affiliated with Top Job Disposal Inc., a solid waste hauler based in Philadelphia. In 2001, Top Job was awarded a five-year contract to remove solid waste from the Philadelphia Produce Market. Renewed for five additional years in 2006, the arrangement pays the firm more than $850,000 annually.