Teamster Boss Mark Harrington Cops Plea in TV Crew Extortion

Mark Harrington, 62, of Andover, is done playing union hardball. The Teamsters Local 25 secretary-treasurer was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Boston for his role in a 2014 attempted extortion scheme targeting a non-union reality television production company. Harrington pleaded guilty in November 2016 to one count of attempted extortion and now faces two years of probation, six months of home confinement, a $10,000 fine, and $24,023 in restitution.

The scheme unfolded in June 2014, when the production crew began filming in and around Boston under permits approved by the City of Boston and the Boston Film Bureau. The company wasn’t signed to any union agreement with Local 25 and hired its own drivers and staff. That didn’t sit well with Harrington and his crew. On or about June 5, Daniel Redmond approached the crew at a Boston hotel and demanded union drivers be hired. He pushed a producer to speak directly with Harrington, who made it clear: he didn’t care about the company—only that ‘some of his guys get hired.’

The threats escalated fast. When the producer insisted no more drivers were needed, Redmond allegedly threatened to shut down filming that same night. That day, Harrington and another union official called repeatedly, warning the production they’d be followed and picketed if they didn’t cut a deal. Intimidation worked. On June 9, a City of Boston representative tipped off a second hotel that Local 25 was planning a picket. The hotel backed out of the shoot, forcing the company to relocate outside city limits.

It didn’t stop there. Early June 10, a Local 25 official warned a producer that 50 union members were on their way to picket a planned shoot at a Milton restaurant. Fearing violence, the company hired a police detail. By 9:00 a.m., Harrington, Redmond, John Fidler, Robert Cafarelli, and Michael Ross arrived at the scene. Two or three of them stormed the production area, walking in lockstep and chest-bumping and stomach-bumping crew members in an aggressive attempt to force their way in.

Throughout the morning, the group continued threatening physical violence, yelling at crew and bystanders, and disrupting operations. Their goal wasn’t safety or labor rights—it was control. They wanted cash funneled through fake work: wages for ‘imposed, unwanted, and unnecessary’ services. The DOJ indictment, handed down in October 2015, charged Harrington and four others with conspiracy to extort and attempted extortion.

The message from federal court is clear: union power doesn’t grant immunity from federal crime. Judge Douglas P. Woodlock made an example of Harrington, exposing the thuggish underbelly of labor strong-arming. While Harrington dodged prison, his name is now sealed in the record—not as a labor leader, but as a convict who used fear to shake down a film crew just trying to do their job in Boston.