"I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa (40 page)

I walked in the Mulberry Street door. I went straight ahead toward the bar, and I kept my back to the Mulberry Street side of the room where Gallo was. I turned and ended up facing the table with the people. I was a bit startled to see a little girl with the people, but sometimes you saw that in the fighting overseas. A split second after I turned to face the table, Crazy Joey Gallo’s driver got shot from behind. The women and the little girl dove under the table. Crazy Joey swung around out of his chair and headed down toward the corner door to the shooter’s right. Could be he was trying to draw fire away from the table, or could be he was just trying to save himself, but most likely he was trying to do both. It was easy to cut him off by going straight down the bar to the door and getting right behind him. He made it through Umberto’s corner door to the outside. Crazy Joey got shot about three times outside of the restaurant not far from the corner door. Could be he had his piece in his car and he was going for the car. He had no chance of making it. Crazy Joey Gallo went to Australia on his birthday on a bloody city sidewalk.

The stories that are out there say that there were three shooters, but I’m not saying that. Maybe the bodyguard added two shooters to make himself look better. Maybe there were a lot of stray shots being fired from the two guns that made it seem like there was more than one shooter. I’m not putting anybody else in the thing but me.

The important thing is that John Francis was right there and he never panicked. He had his experience with the Irish mob in London. John Francis had no job or anything. He lived by his wits. And he had them.

John headed back to Yonkers the very long way, after first making sure there was no tail and after changing cars. Quite naturally, the next thing he did was toss the pieces in the river at a spot he knew about. There’s a spot like that in the Schuylkill River in Philly; if they ever send divers in they’ll be able to arm a small country.

Later on, I heard some Italian guy took credit for the whack they put on Gallo. That’s okay by me. Maybe the guy wanted to be a celebrity. Probably the guy turned rat or something. The rats always load up their résumés so the government treats them with more respect. The government loves a rat that gives them a chance to solve the big ones, even if the rat was just a low-life drug dealer who wouldn’t know a big one from his left nut.

Now before The Redhead died of cancer it was told to me by a good source that he implicated me in fourteen hits that he claimed I did with him while he was the driver, including Crazy Joey Gallo. It was in the eighties when he was dying and I was in jail at the time. I don’t know for sure; maybe John was stand-up. But if John did talk when he was delirious I don’t mind that. John was dying of cancer and he was in a lot of pain and full of medication, and he didn’t want to die in jail. The Redhead was in no mental state to testify to the truth against anybody. John was good people. I don’t blame a man who wants to make his peace.

Russell trusted John and me both with important errands like the fresh kid. The other bosses would never want a hit like that linked to their families. That’s how gang wars start. The New York families were ultra-Italian. The Commision knew that Russell had a very liberal attitude about non-Italians. Two old-time Irish guys with a lot of combat experience was a benefit Russell was able to provide for important matters like Gallo. The Commission always gave Russell anything really big. Besides, Russell was close to Colombo and supported the Italian American Civil Rights League.

It was during that time that Jimmy was doing his politics on the sidelines. He became very big in prison reform. He was sincere about it, but it also gave him a lot of opportunities to do his campaigning. One time Jimmy used Charlie Allen for something during a prison-reform fundraiser. It was a drop.

Charlie Allen got out of Lewisburg after Jimmy did and Jimmy asked me to take care of him. I already knew Allen slightly from downtown. I first met him when I was out of office after the DeGeorge thing. I was driving a truck for Crown Zellerbach. Allen had done an armed robbery and he needed to get out of Philadelphia. I drove him up to Scranton in my truck and dropped him off with Dave Osticco. Dave had been with Russ for many years. Dave kept Allen in a safe house until the heat got so bad for Allen back in Philly that he decided to turn himself in. If I’m not mistaken that armed robbery is the one he went to Lewisburg on. After Jimmy asked me to help him out I used Allen to drive me places. My status was now at the point where I had a driver and people did things for me and showed me respect in certain ways.

The one thing Charlie Allen really did do that he testified about at my trials was to make a delivery to John Mitchell from Jimmy Hoffa for CREEP. Jimmy was still keeping all the lines of communication open to Nixon. Jimmy was at a prison-reform fundraiser in Washington. His parole officer allowed Jimmy to travel to Washington for something like that. Jimmy would invite people he wanted to do business with to these affairs. Jimmy would also invite people he had been to school with who could talk about prison life. Jimmy made sure I had Charlie Allen there with Allen’s partner, Frank Del Piano, at this particular affair in Washington. Jimmy had Alan Cohen, a political mover from Philadelphia, there, and Jimmy and Alan gave Charlie Allen $40,000 in cash to give to Mitchell for the Nixon campaign. Later on it came out that Mitchell only handed over $17,000 of that cash contribution to the CREEP. Mitchell palmed $23,000. Like I said, he knew his business, that man.

Three or four years later the feds got Charlie Allen to talk to them. In one of his very early conversations with them he told the FBI the truth about this incident. This conversation with the FBI was about a year before he agreed to wear a wire to trap me. In the beginning he probably didn’t realize they wanted him to go way overboard against me on the Hoffa disappearance. At least in the beginning he was sticking up for me on the Hoffa case, not that somebody way down the chain like him would have known anything about my business anyway. I had been taking pretty good care of Charlie Allen from the time he got out until the day I caught him wearing a wire in 1979.
”

Excerpt from an official FBI report, known as a 302, produced by the government in Frank Sheeran’s trials pursuant to Federal Court Rules. (Allen’s mistake as to the approximate year he made his delivery of the money to Mitchell is deleted from the excerpt and was cleared up in a subsequent 302 dated November 4, 1977):

HOFFEX

On September 22, 1977, PH 5125-OC [Charlie Allen] advised SA [Special Agent] HENRY O. HANDY, JR. and SA THOMAS L. VAN DERSLICE as follows:

When asked the last time he saw AL COHEN, source responded, ”when he gave me a suitcase full of money to give to JOHN MITCHELL.” Source remembers attending a testimonial dinner in Washington, D.C. at a ”very big beautiful hotel” right in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this dinner was to raise funds for prison reform which was of great interest to JIMMY HOFFA. HOFFA was in attendance at this dinner…. During this dinner FRANK DEL PIANO, also known as TONTO, and source were approached by HOFFA and AL COHEN. HOFFA told source to ”take this money to John Mitchell.” At this point Cohen handed a suitcase to source who described it as a black satchel approximately two feet long and one foot wide. Source did not look inside because “you don’t do that to Jimmy.” He remembers, however, that the bag was very heavy. Upon receiving the satchel, source and DEL PIANO left the hotel and had entered a waiting limousine without knowing where they were going. The car took them to a “big beautiful house” outside of Washington and source was met at the door by John Mitchell. Source addressed MITCHELL and stated “JIMMY sent me.” MITCHELL took the satchel, said “thank you” and closed the door. Source re-entered the limousine and returned to the hotel.

“
Of all the different jobs and things I did in my time, looking back my favorite part was being president of Local 326. When I was incarcerated the local made me Honorary President for Life. They didn’t have to like me, but they did respect me and they respected the job I did for them. I got them their own charter through Jimmy. Before that they were run by Philadelphia. In 1979 I got them a new building that is their headquarters to this day. I took care of them day to day on their grievances and the enforcement of their contracts. We had over 3,000 members when I went to jail. Today it’s more like 1,000.

Our old office before 1979 was at 109 East Front Street, a rundown neighborhood by the railroad station. That whole area is improved now. Toward the end of 1972 I got a visit at that old building from a very prominent lawyer I knew who was very big in the Democratic Party. He wanted to talk to me about the upcoming 1972 race for the United States Senate.

Earlier in the year the incumbent United States Senator Caleb Boggs had stopped by and asked me to allow him to speak to the membership. I told Boggs that he was too much against labor. He denied that he was against labor. He was a Republican and he said that since the Teamsters were supporting Nixon for reelection, he ought to be given a shot to speak to the rank and file. Boggs had been the governor and a congressman before he became senator. I don’t think he ever lost an election. Everybody liked him. He was a very personable man with a good reputation, but as far as I could tell he was for the corporations in Delaware. I took it to the executive board and we decided not to invite him.

When his opponent Joe Biden asked if he could speak to the membership I took it to the executive board and got their feelings about it and nobody opposed it, so I said sure. Biden was on the County Council and he was a Democrat and the County Council had some very good people on it for labor. Joe Biden was a young kid compared to Boggs. He came and gave his spiel and he turned out to be a very good talker. He gave a really good pro-labor speech to the rank and file at that membership meeting. He took questions from the floor and handled himself like somebody many years older. He said his door would always be open to the Teamsters.

So when this prominent lawyer I knew stopped by my office a little before Election Day I was already in Biden’s corner. The lawyer had another guy with him who worked inside the
Morning News
and the
Evening Journal.
They were two papers that were put out by the same company. They were basically the same paper and they were the only daily newspapers in Wilmington.

Wilmington is in the very northern part of the state and was more liberal than the southern part. Delaware, being a very small state, had maybe 600,000 people back then. Over half of them lived in the northern county and the rest in the two southern counties. The Mason-Dixon line runs right through Delaware. For years they had segregated schools in the two southern counties. They had some out-and-out segregation in the north too but mostly the north had customs that were more like a northern city like Philadelphia. At that time—and maybe even today—nearly every newspaper buyer in the state read the Wilmington newspaper.

The lawyer explained to me that Senator Boggs had put together some ads that were going to run in an advertising insert in the paper every day for the last week before the election. Boggs was claiming that Joe Biden had distorted Boggs’s voting record, and the ads were going to show what Biden had said about Boggs alongside of Boggs’s actual voting record or whatever. The lawyer didn’t want those newspapers to be delivered. The lawyer was very good people. He was very smart. He was experienced and he knew that both sides of an election played their games. The corporations played plenty of games over the years, telling their workers who to vote for, pulling strings behind the scenes.

The guy who was there who worked on the paper said that he wanted to put up an informational picket line, but he didn’t have any good people that worked with him in the newspaper he could trust to walk the line. I think they had a union already, but this line was going to be for a different union. I told him I would hire some people and put them on the picket line for him. They were people nobody would mess with.

The idea behind an informational picket line is that you’re trying to organize the company, or you’re claiming that the company is unfair and won’t sit down and negotiate with the union, or that the company is putting pressure on the workers not to sign union cards. You might be trying to force an election to replace the union they already have, like Paul Hall and the Seafarers did against Jimmy Hoffa. Any time you see the words “Unfair to Labor” on a picket line that’s an informational picket line. You can’t put on your signs that you’re on strike because you’re not a recognized union yet, and that would violate the rules of the National Labor Relations Board.

I told my friend the lawyer and the guy he had with him that they could count on me to get it handled. I always had a lot of respect for that lawyer and I thought Biden was better for labor anyway. I told him that once we put up the picket line I would see to it that no truck driver crossed that picket line. The Teamsters would honor the informational picket line of the other union, whatever name they used.

The line went up and the newspapers were printed, but they stayed in the warehouse and they never were delivered. The newspaper company called me up and wanted my men to go back to work. I told them we’re honoring the picket line. He asked me if I had anything to do with the blowing up of a railroad car that had material that was going to be used in the printing of the newspaper—whether it was paper or ink or some kind of other supplies, I don’t know. But no people got hurt in the bombing. I told him we’re honoring the picket line, and if he wanted to hire some guards to keep an eye on his railroad cars he should look in the Yellow Pages.