Brian McLaughlin will soon change fancy duds for prison wear.The onetime boss of the city's largest labor union coalition pleaded guilty Friday to brazenly stealing $2.2 million in cash, cars and perks.
It took Brian McLaughlin an hour to detail his crimes - including stealing from Little Leaguers, strong-arming contractors and filing phony invoices.
Under the deal, McLaughlin will get an eight- to 10-year prison term when sentenced in September for racketeering and perjury. He was allowed to remain free on $250,000 bail.
McLaughlin, 55, told Manhattan Federal Court Judge Richard Sullivan about dozens of cash grabs he engineered during a decade as president of the New York City Central Labor Council and as a seven-term Queens Democratic assemblyman.
"I take full responsibility," the towering McLaughlin told Sullivan in a strong and confident voice he used to rise through the ranks of a Queens electrician's local to command the million-member council, an umbrella group of the city's unionized trades.
A few rows back, his wife, Eva, her face deeply tanned, watched her husband with a doleful gaze, kissing him on the cheek when it was over.
McLaughlin declined to comment afterward.
"I've been advised by counsel that the process continues," he said.
The labor council has replaced McLaughlin with a Teamster, Gary LaBarbera.
In a statement Friday, the council said it has been "reinvigorated" since McLaughlin was indicted in the fall of 2006. "That being said, we wish the McLaughlin family well," the council said.
Union members served as McLaughlin's errand boys, shoveling snow at his home, cleaning a barn, installing a home security system and scouring a basement for rodents, prosecutors say.
McLaughlin told Sullivan he plundered $95,000 from a bank account for the Electchester Athletic Association by having members send out contribution letters bearing the slogan, "A Child in Sports Stays Out of the Courts."
McLaughlin also admitted:
- Getting $400,000 in kickbacks and three cars from street lighting contractors who hired his union members. He gave one car to a female friend and one to his wife.
- Using union members to drive him to Albany using McLaughlin's E-ZPass so he could get reimbursed.
- Taking cash to pay for his son's tuition, the mortgage on his home in the exclusive Long Island enclave of Nissequogue and rent for an Albany flat.
Last year, McLaughlin went back to work as an electrician, pulling wire at a W. 59th St. construction site while outfitted in a blue 9/11 T-shirt and a Jets cap.
