Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 27

LONG ISLAND Set to Begin in Carting Case 5th Trial By Joshua Quittner James Corrigan Jr the executive director of the Private Sanitation Industry Association of Nassau and Suffolk this week is scheduled to become the fifth defendant to stand trial in what state prosecutors say was a scheme to control the carting industry on Long Island The state Organized Crime Task Force empaneled a special grand jury and the garbage industry on Long Island was investigated for two years Arrests were made in September 1984 and the suspects were accused of conspiring in a bribery and rate-fixing scheme After four trials one of the officials charged Richard Ignatow the former commissioner of Huntington Department of Environmental Control has gone to jail for not answering the questions Two of the officials Town Councilman Kenneth Deegan and Town Clerk Jo-Ann Raia have been exonerated Deegan had been accused of accepting a bribe from Corrigan in the form of a political contribution and Raia had been accused of perjury and contempt before the grand jury Two former deputy directors of the environmental department Arthur Romersa and Vito Biondo have pleaded innocent to charges of bribery and conspiracy and are awaiting trial Corrigan 56 is the most prominent figure still to be tried in connection backs from a Farmingdale printing company that did work for the association Bribery and official misconduct charges were dismissed against Deegan for insufficient evidence and the dismissal was upheld by the Appellate Division That case is slated to be heard by the highest court the Court or Appeals later this month In March Town Clerk Raia was acquitted of charges of perjury and criminal contempt Ignatow is serving a jail term of 6 months for felony contempt He was convicted in June 1985 or failing to answer fully questions he was asked by the grand Jury The questions concerned discussions on political contributions for the Democrats the vote of Town Board Democrats and Republicans and discussions he had with Kenneth Butterfield former Democratic supervisor Also facing a jail term for perjury and contempt is Peter Finnerty the downstate bureau chief for the state Department of Motor Vehicles Finnerty 72 was convicted last month of misleading or giving Incorrect answers to the grand jury about a series of conversations he had with then-Sheriff John Finnerty no relation and Corrigan Peter Finnerty faces sentencing next month Prosecutors from the state Organized Crime Task Force and Corrigan's lawyer declined to comment on the trial the industry through bribes coercion and threats Corrigan was named under that indictment as well and was described by state investigators as being the "front man" for Sal Avellino the reputed overseer of garbage interests on Long Island for the Lucchese crime family Avellino and eight others are serving community service sentences picking up garbage as part of a plea bargain they accepted in October "Do I desire to make comments?" Corrigan an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the state senate and the Suffolk County Legislature said in an interview last week "Very definitely Is it my inclination to make comments? Most emphatically But right now might not be the opportune time1' In interviews after his indictment Corrigan said the charges against him were untrue and politically motivated role according to the indictments handed up in the case was multi-faceted: He was accused of bribing Romersa and Biondo who allegedly agreed to persuade three Democratic Town Board members to vote in favor of a rate increase for the carters And he was accused of trying to ensure the rate hike by bribing Town Councilman Deegan a Republican board member Corrigan was also charged with bid-rigging and restraining competition between carting companies Finally charged with taking kick- James Corrigan Jr with the alleged scheme to get Huntington Town officials to raise residential garbage rates in return for mors than $12000 in political contributions to Democratic and Republican Party candidates The trial is scheduled to begin tomorrow in Riverhead The grand jury investigation also led to the arrests of 20 members of the carting industry and reputed mobsters The indictment handed up charged that there had been an attempt by organized crime to dominate Unsolved Murder Unresolved Anguish 7 a i- il I fy i i 4 i t'-'-Vi 'w hr1''' Dlvi i k-? A WiitlilWIlii) I Mite nMirAMbrjNU Yeshiva students head for their rooms the dorm where Chaim Weiss was killed remains vacant KEWSOAY MONDAY MAY 4 1987 from Page 6 capable of according to several students and faculty at the yeshiva It was a saying others also had used to describe Chaim in the lower grades Although they are reluctant to talk about Chaim or his murder and yeshiva rabbis refused requests for interviews several students who asked that they not be identified described Chaim as one of the most dedicated students at the schooL "He wasn't a said one llth-grade classmate last week as he walked from the yeshiva to the dormitories three blocks away "What he was was trying to be the Said another classmate: "He was challenged by everything He liked to figure things out for him- Anton Weiss said his son scored a 100 on his final Regents exam in algebra and a 99 on his geometry exam pretty good huh?" said Anton Weiss smiling as he fingered several femilypicturea of his son "And he folt terrible he got a 99 "He was in the right said his father He was blossoming" As is the case with all boys at the yeshiva Chaim also studied the Torah and Talmud But while he liked the religious studies which he excelled at Chaim had not indicated to his parents that he wanted to become a rabbi While education was a significant part of his life it wasn't the oily thing that caught attention At school Chaim was a respected chess player and loved to play basketball outside between classes And when Chaim came home to Staten Island for the holidays Anton Weiss remembers he was just as comfortable challenging his father in chess as in conversation "He always had the last word or tried said his father laughing- "He was my son but he also was old enough to be my Anton Weiss admits nis son lived a sheltered life both at the yeshiva and at home with his brother Menachem 11 and his 7-year-old sister RacheL Although many members of the Weiss family perished in the Holocaust Chaim was ignorant of violence "He was too innocent to understand what violence was all arid Anton Weiss who was born in a camp for displaced refugees in Germany shortly after World War IL "He didn't have a true grasp of how violent the world is I don't think he and classes His body was found about six hours later when a dormitory supervisor went to his small room to wake him for dautning the daily prayers The dormitory is empty now dosed by the school the day of the murder Personal items such as shoes books toothpaste tubes and a yarmulke left behind in the room attest to the rush in which about 45 students were moved from the dormitory after the murder Throughout the dormitory there is evidence of an extensive police search Walls and bricks have been removed py police looking for a concealed murder weapon or other leads Blue and black powder still dings to walls and stairways where police dusted for fingerprints In room shortly after the murder only the old wooden desk where Chaim studied and the bed where ha was deeping when ha was attacked remained A used bar of soap sat on a shelf in an almost empty closet Chaim's clothes had been returned to nis femily after police searched them "I keep thinking about what said Anton Weiss speaking softly "His potential what not going to experience It's not that 1 lost i Chaim I mat a whole part of J4 could imagine unprovoked Neither the family nor police can find anything in the last few days of life that would help to explain why he was murdered He had spent an uneventful three weeks at home with his family during Yom Kippur and had only returned to school on the Tuesday before he was killed parents are perplexed by their fail- ure to call home on the Wednesday and Thursday before his Saturday morning death Meticulous about calling his parents each day Chaim finally ke with nis parents on Friday morning before ly prayers and then only because his father called him first Anton Weiss adds however that if something was bothering his son it must not have been serious The day before he died Chaim took the PSAT examination The results which arrived after his murder showed that the boy had scored highest in the class "If something had been wrong he would not have done so said Anton Weiss "He was According to detectives Weiss was last seen alive at about 1 am Saturday when he went to bed after talking with classmates about their vacations imt WtV-kH nr 1 0 siy.