March 20, 1981

A construction company involved in a multimillion-dollar renovation of a building in lower Manhattan pleaded guilty yesterday in Federal District Court to charges that two company officers paid $50,000 to officials of two unions to secure labor peace at the site. The site is at 405 Hudson Street.

The two men, released on their own recognizance, are expected to be the chief witnesses in the Government's case against a dozen defendants. The dozen, some of them alleged mob figures, were indicted last week on charges involving payoffs for the use of nonunion workers on construction projects.

The two men in yesterday's action were Arthur Balaban of Valley Stream, L.I., and David Laub of Old Westbury, L.I., officers of the Caryst-Bradford Construction Company of Long Island City. They said they had paid money to an agent of Theodore Maritas, president of the District Council of Carpenters; to Daniel M. Pagano, business manager of Local 59 of the Laborers International Union of North America, and to other union officials.

The agent, known to the construction officials as James O'Brien, was James Abbott, an undercover agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.