 |
| A law enforcement official entered the cherry factory on Wednesday. Officials found a marijuana farm beneath the premises |
There was no sign on the former brick factory on the
treeless block in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where Arthur Mondella worked. No
name on the door. Nothing — other than the bright-red liquid trickling
onto the sidewalk and into the gutter, and the thick scent of syrup on a
summer’s day — to announce the presence of one of the country’s largest
suppliers of maraschino cherries.
“Look at this building,” said Brian Connell, 68, who has lived next door to Dell’s Maraschino Cherries
for nearly 20 years. “It’s totally anonymous. And then, here you see
this Porsche Carrera being backed out. I say to myself, ‘The cherry
business is profitable! Who knew?’ ”
Mr.
Mondella’s company, which his grandfather and father founded in 1948,
was indeed large and, to all appearances, profitable. But the Dikeman
Street plant had some trappings the neighbors found curious. The fleet
of vehicles Mr. Mondella kept in the garage, for instance, including the
Porsche, a Rolls-Royce, a Harley-Davidson and a Mercedes — all pure
white. The security cameras bristling from the building’s corners. The
razor wire barricading its roof.
On Tuesday, Mr.
Mondella, 57, shot and killed himself in his office bathroom just as
city investigators were discovering that a marijuana farm lay beneath
the factory. On Wednesday, investigators were still sorting through what
was legal and what was not at the plant. According to one law
enforcement official, who asked not to be named because he was not
authorized to comment on a continuing investigation, it appeared that
Mr. Mondella’s employees had not known about his other operations.
 |
| Arthur Mondella at Dell’s Maraschino Cherries in Brooklyn in January. Mr. Mondella killed himself there on Tuesday. |
A truck was dispatched to collect material, which included nearly
$200,000 in cash, the official said. It was not clear by Wednesday
evening how the marijuana came to be grown at the factory or how it was
distributed.
The factory’s residential and commercial
neighbors, many of whom said they had had no idea a cherry factory was
nearby, found little to explain Mr. Mondella’s sideline business, or why
he would take such an extreme step over a crime that struck many as
fairly minor in a borough where the district attorney has stopped prosecuting most low-level marijuana offenses. The most controversy the factory had attracted before this came several years ago, when local bees began turning red after feasting on the cherry liquid.
“In
this neighborhood it’s hard to keep a secret — except for this one,”
said Pat Murano, 41, who has lived next door to the factory since 2005,
occasionally complaining about the noise coming from Dell’s but rarely
seeing Mr. Mondella himself.
In hindsight,
the security cameras, wire and lights Mr. Mondella installed after a
break-in about eight years ago seemed strange, Mr. Murano said,
especially after investigators told neighbors that a large sum of money
had been taken. “I didn’t think he was protecting the Dye No. 7 or his
equipment,” he said.
Yet the factory seemed
nothing if not successful. Mr. Mondella had expanded the plant multiple
times, neighbors said, and he had bought warehouses and satellite
facilities on other streets nearby. Hurricane Sandy devastated much of the rest of the waterfront neighborhood, but left the Dell’s factory intact.
He
would often call Frank Manzione, a local real estate broker whom he had
known since the 1990s and who sold Dell’s another property on Dikeman
Street, to ask about acquiring other buildings. Mr. Mondella — described
as mellow yet direct, friendly and hardworking — was one of the clients
Mr. Manzione said he most enjoyed doing business with.
The
last time they spoke, in December, Mr. Mondella said business was good —
so good that he needed an additional 4,000 to 6,000 square feet of
space.
“The man was a stand-up gentleman,”
Mr. Manzione said. “He was a good family man, and a very, very good
individual. I tell you, I’m at a loss. When I heard about this
yesterday, I say, ‘Something’s wrong here.’ I’m flabbergasted by this
whole situation.”
Beyond Mr. Manzione and a few other local business owners, Mr. Mondella seemed to keep to himself.
He
did not live in the neighborhood. He bypassed the meetings and
community events many local residents organized after the hurricane in
2012.
“Until yesterday, I had no idea there
was a big cherry place,” said Susan Saunders, an employee at the New
York Printing & Graphics shop opposite Fairway Market. “After Sandy,
we went to all these meetings and got to know everybody, but not him.”
A woman who answered the phone at Mr. Mondella’s home on Wednesday said his family did not want to talk to reporters.
Mr. Mondella told Crain’s New York in January that the business was profitable, with $20 million in revenue a year and clients including T.G.I. Friday’s and Checkers.
On Tuesday, investigators from the Brooklyn
district attorney’s office, the state’s Department of Environmental
Conservation and the city’s Department of Environmental Protection
arrived at the plant to search for evidence relating to accusations that
Dell’s had been dumping toxic substances into Red Hook’s water supply.
The
investigators’ search warrant was for files, nothing more — but when
they searched Mr. Mondella’s office, something else caught their
attention.
“They saw this shelving unit in
his office and they also smelled the whiff of marijuana,” the law
enforcement official said. “They said, ‘What’s behind here?’ ”
As
they prepared to return with another search warrant, Mr. Mondella
excused himself to use the bathroom, where he stayed for a long time.
When investigators tried to coax him out, he asked them to get his
sister.
“Take care of my kids,” he said. Then the gun went off.
No comments:
Post a Comment