Boston Teamsters Indicted Include Top Official, As Well As Violent Ex-Con, Drug Dealer

Following the indictments of five Teamster “thugs” in Boston earlier this week, more details are emerging about some of those accused of terrorizing the cast and crew of Bravo’s ‘Top Chef.’
One of them, Mark Harrington, is the Secretary-Treasurer of Local 25—the second-highest ranking officer in the local.
He and his fellow Teamsters, according to Deadline.com, were “indicted on conspiracy to extort and attempted extortion of a television production company in order to obtain no-work jobs for fellow Teamsters.”
One of the other Teamsters indicted, is John Fidler, who has served time, according to The Boston Globe:

One of five Teamsters charged with joining with other members in the attempted extortion of the “Top Chef” television crew filming in the Boston area has had several other brushes with the law.

John Fidler, 51, who has a criminal record that dates back to 1985, had been scheduled for a detention hearing Thursday, but the judge allowed him to be freed on $50,000 bond secured by his Holbrook home. He has pleaded not guilty to the federal extortion charges.

In 1985, Fidler was convicted of stabbing several people in downtown Boston and sentenced to spend 20 years in state prison. In 2004, he admitted to selling cocaine while working as a laborer on the Big Dig. [Emphasis added.]

Boston Teamsters’ Local 25 has a storied history of violence and corruption that include one former local president serving time.
Radio talk-show host Howie Carr summarized here:

Did I mention that in the 1980’s, the President’s Commission on Organized Crime reported that Local 25 was controlled by the Winter Hill Gang, run by Whitey Bulger, who killed women for sport? Or that in the 1990’s, the Local 25 thugs put out a hit on a woman who ran a vending truck, in order to get the business for one of their fellow mobsters, a crooked ex-cop.

For more background, go here.