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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Eugene Giaquinto.md
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@ -3,14 +3,28 @@ category: "Organized Crime"
tags:
- Person
- OrganizedCrime
summary: "Both Giaquinto and Robert Booth Nichols were noted to have a close working relationship with the Justice Department, according to the wiretaps."
- MCA
summary: "President of MCA's home entertainment division whose calls with the labor negotiator Marty Bacow were wiretapped in a 1987-89 strike force inquiry; he was never prosecuted."
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Music Corporation of America]]"
role: "president, Home Entertainment division"
fn: 2
- type: investigated
with: "[[Richard Stavin]]"
reverse: true
role: "strike force labor racketeering investigation"
fn: 2
created: 2025-08-05
updated: 2026-09-22
---
[[Eugene Giaquinto]] was the president of [[Music Corporation of America|MCA]] home entertainment division and a significant figure in the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]'s wiretap investigation into alleged organized crime penetration of [[Music Corporation of America|MCA]]. He was also a board member of [[Robert Booth Nichols]]' holding company, [[Meridian International Logistics|MIL]], which was under investigation as a source of funding for narcotics trafficking.[1]
Eugene F. Giaquinto was the president of the home entertainment division of [[Music Corporation of America|MCA]]. He was a subject of a two-year investigation by the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] and the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s [[Los Angeles]] Organized Crime Strike Force into suspected labor racketeering in the film industry, overseen by the strike force attorney [[Richard Stavin]]. In September 1987 MCA security officers discovered an attempt by agents to tap Giaquinto's office telephone and wrongly blamed it on the prosecutor [[Marvin Rudnick]]. The investigators did tap the telephone of Giaquinto's confidant Marty Bacow, a labor negotiator with ties to the Teamsters president Jackie Presser, and Giaquinto was one of the people Bacow talked to most.[^2]
[[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] wiretaps recorded communications between Giaquinto and [[Robert Booth Nichols]]. These interceptions, along with the beliefs of [[United States Attorney|U.S. Attorney]] [[Marvin Rudnick]], [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] agent [[Thomas Gates]], and Organized Crime Strike Force member [[Richard Stavin]], indicated that [[Music Corporation of America|MCA]] had been infiltrated by organized crime, specifically linking to members of the [[Gambino Crime Family]] and [[Bufalino Crime Family]]. Giaquinto reportedly enjoyed a special relationship with [[John Gotti]].[1]
A newspaper report said the FBI believed Giaquinto had passed MCA funds annually to [[Edward Sciandra]], underboss of the [[Bufalino Crime Family]], and had a longstanding relationship with [[John Gotti]] of the [[Gambino Crime Family]]. Stavin resigned from the strike force in May 1989 with the case unresolved. Giaquinto was never prosecuted, and as of 1993 the wiretaps of his conversations with Bacow remained sealed; he then ran a video production and duplication firm in the San Fernando Valley.[^2]
Both Giaquinto and [[Robert Booth Nichols]] were noted to have a close working relationship with the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]], according to the wiretaps. Despite the evidence gathered, the wiretaps were subsequently sealed by the [[Department of Justice|DOJ]], and no prosecutions were pursued, leading to the disbandment of the Los Angeles Organized Crime Strike Force and the resignations of key investigators.[1]
According to [[Cheri Seymour]], Giaquinto sat on the board of [[Robert Booth Nichols]]'s holding company, [[Meridian International Logistics]], which was under investigation as a source of funding for narcotics trafficking; FBI wiretaps recorded communications between the two men, and both were described in the intercepts as having a close working relationship with the Justice Department.[^1]
---
### Footnotes
[1] Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010.
[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010. Sole source for the Meridian board seat, the narcotics-funding investigation, the Nichols intercepts and the Justice Department relationship.
[^2]: Knoedelseder, William. *Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business, and the Mafia.* HarperCollins, 1993, pp. xvii, 434-448, 464. Read through the archive.org BookReader search, item stiffedtruestory00knoe.