Inside the battle to keep Mafia wiseguys off the NY-NJ waterfront...


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It was like a scene from “The Sopranos.” New Jersey mobster Manny “Guitarbarr” Rodriguez cornered a man who owed him money in a Newark restaurant in 1995, aiming to deliver a message on the consequences of not paying up. The “ultra violent” enforcer, nightclub owner and loan shark at the New Jersey ports ordered a pal to hold the arms of gym owner Gilberto Rubio. Then Rodriguez ripped a gold chain from the man’s neck and stabbed him once in the chest, according to police sources and investigative records. “It was a ‘don’t f–k with me’ injury,” a law enforcement source familiar with the incident told The Post. The source said that Rubio, who survived the bloody attack, had fallen behind on loan payments and gambling debts to Rodriguez, an associate of the Genovese crime family. Rodriguez — who’d just gotten out of jail for shooting another man while trying to collect unpaid sports bets in 1991 — was never prosecuted in the alleged stabbing.



Rodriguez’s influence on the docks over the past three decades has tormented the Waterfront Commission, a Mafia-fighting unit now facing a crisis in the wake of Gov. Phil Murphy’s bid to pull New Jersey from the joint, two-state agency. New York, meanwhile, is suing to try to prevent that from happening. The Genovese associate has been a key target of the commission, which has long sought to keep him and his circle of connected pals from turning their access to port business and the longshoreman’s union into illicit cash, according to investigators. They describe the task as nearly impossible, given that the people who run the docks and the union that represents its workers continue to award six-figure jobs to wiseguys, their friends and relatives — including the nephew of late Genovese godfather Vincent “The Chin” Gigante — all while providing opportunities for theft and corruption.


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The battle to keep mafia wiseguys off the NY-NJ waterfront (nypost.com)