8/24/93

Hartford Courant News

MICHAEL REMEZ ; Courant Staff Writer

A Hartford labor leader tied to the Colonial Realty Co. has given up the top job with the Connecticut Laborers District Council, the umbrella group for state laborer locals.

Dominick Lopreato, longtime leader of the state council and Hartford-based Local 230, stepped aside from the council's business manager position Friday.

Charles LeConche, president of I Local 230 since 1978, was elected the same day to succeed Lopreato as business manager.

Lopreato will keep the title of secretary-treasurer, essentially the second in command at the council representing about 8,500 workers across the state. He also continues to serve as business manager for Local 230.

LeConche said Lopreato also will keep his seat on the Connecticut Laborers Union Pension Fund.

LeConche said union leaders decided to separate the two jobs that had been held by Lopreato -- business manager and secretary-treasurer -- so as better to handle the increasingly complex issues confronting the union.

He said the change in leadership was not connected to investigations into Colonial.

The laborers pension fund invested $5 million in two Colonial partnerships before the real estate syndicating company went bankrupt in l990. The fund has filed a federal lawsuit against Colonial, charging the company oversold bonds on the partnership that owned the Gold Building in Hartford.

In a deposition for that case, Lopreato admitted that he had received a $14,000 gold watch from a Colonial partner about six weeks after the fund made its $3 million investment in the Gold Building bonds. Lopreato said he returned the watch.

Lopreato testified that he believed Jonathan Googel gave him the watch for helping Googel make contacts with other union officials to try to sell them Colonial investments. At least one other laborer's local -- one in Albany, N.Y. -- invested millions of dollars in a Colonial bond issue after conferring with Lopreato and others

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