"I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa (42 page)

To which Fitzsimmons responded: “I didn’t know nothing about them restrictions.”

To which Colson added: “That’s just plain malarkey…. I advised Mr. Fitzsimmons I think the day before Hoffa was to be released that he was going to be released under the conditions that seemed to be in the best interest of the labor movement and the country at the time. I never told him what, what those restrictions were.”

And if Colson is to be believed, Fitzsimmons’s curiosity was not at all aroused and he never asked, “Restrictions, what, what restrictions?” But as to all of this stuff that lawyers call “he said, she said,” the government would have an opportunity to argue that it was beside the point. On July 19, 1974, Judge John H. Pratt of the United States District Court in Washington, D.C., responded to the factual allegations made by Hoffa and found against him. Judge Pratt held that even if the Colson-Fitzsimmons conspiracy were proven, the president’s signature on the restriction held the day “for the same reason [that] one cannot attack the validity of an Act of Congress on the grounds that the Congressmen who voted in favor of it did so for improper motives.”

This loss left Hoffa with no choice but to appeal to the next judicial level, where the argument there would focus on the law, the constitutional issues raised by Boudin. Hoffa and Boudin were very optimistic that their legal arguments would prevail on the appellate level. However, the appeal would take another year or more. A decision would not come until late 1975.

On August 9, 1974, less than a month after Hoffa lost that first legal round in Judge Pratt’s courtroom, Nixon threw in the towel. He resigned from office and was replaced by Vice President Gerald R. Ford, who had been handpicked by Nixon a few months earlier to replace Spiro T. Agnew. Agnew had resigned when it was discovered that, even as vice president, he had continued to be on the payroll of crooked public works contractors in Maryland, where he had been governor. The day after Nixon resigned the new, handpicked president, Gerald R. Ford, who had been one of the seven members of the Warren Commission, pardoned Nixon for any crimes he might be charged with. Ford put no restrictions on Nixon’s pardon.

Now all Jimmy Hoffa had to do was trust in the appeal.

“
There is no doubt Jimmy expected to win that court case, and everyone expected him to win it in time to take back the union practically on the same day as America’s bicentennial celebration. Jimmy could have done nothing for a couple of years, let his lawyers handle the appeal, and coasted into office. But that wasn’t Jimmy’s way. Jimmy’s way was to fight even if he didn’t have anybody to fight with.
”

 
chapter twenty-six
 

All Hell Will Break Loose

In his book
The Teamsters,
Steven Brill makes the point that by 1974 the Central States Pension Fund of the Teamsters Union had more than $1 billion dollars loaned out for commercial real-estate ventures, including casinos. This was only 20 percent less than was loaned out by the financial powerhouse, Chase Manhattan Bank. “In short,” said Brill, “the mob had control of one of the nation’s major financial institutions and one of the very largest private sources of real-estate investment capital in the world.”

Control of the president of the Teamsters ensured control of the pension fund and ensured favorable treatment in union contracts. For many years after Hoffa disappeared and after Fitzsimmons stepped down the mob continued to control the office of the president of the IBT by controlling delegates who voted at the election. As late as 1986, Commission member and Genovese family boss, Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, was convicted of rigging the election of Teamsters president Roy Williams. The FBI had bugged the Parma Boys Social Club in New York and Fat Tony was convicted with his own words. Frank Sheeran and Fat Tony would be inmates together at the same federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, in the late eighties, when Fat Tony was dying of cancer.

Also in prison with Sheeran and Fat Tony was a tattooed, muscle-bound, outlaw biker named Sailor. Like Fat Tony, Sailor was dying of cancer, and because he had only a few months left to live he was given a hardship release. According to Sheeran, Fat Tony arranged for $25,000 to be delivered to him on his release. In return for the money Sailor drove to Long Island and murdered a civilian witness who had testified against Fat Tony. While Russell Bufalino had gotten religion at Springfield prison hospital, preparing himself for the next life, Salerno had no such epiphany.

In 1975, at the time of Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance, Fat Tony was the boss of the very crime family to which Tony Pro belonged, the Genovese.

“
Frank Sheeran Appreciation Night was October 18, 1974. About six months before my banquet there were some murmurs floating around that Jimmy might not be so good for pension fund loans in the future. This talk was mostly coming out of Tony Pro’s area, because he was campaigning against Jimmy. I talked to Russell about what I was hearing here and there, and Russell said there’s only so much money the Teamsters can lend out, anyway, and pretty soon that well would run dry no matter who was in charge of it. Jimmy was always good to deal with. Russell said there were problems from Tony Pro and some others in Kansas City, but Jimmy had a lot of support from his old friends. Russell was for Jimmy and he told me that after his trial he’d take me to see Fat Tony Salerno, Tony Pro’s boss. Tony Pro had control over two or three locals in north Jersey, but Fat Tony had way more than that as far as influencing delegates.

Meanwhile, Russell had to win his own trial in upstate New York. A couple of Russell’s people had a cigarette vending machine business there. They were getting a lot of competition from this other company in Binghamton, New York. Russell’s people tried to talk to the two owners of the company in Binghamton about putting some of their profits on the table. The owners of the other company did not go for the idea of making Russell’s people silent partners. Then one night, the two owners of the other company allegedly got worked over. The next thing you know Russell and about a dozen others in his family were arrested for extortion. Some of the ones they arrested got dismissed for lack of evidence, but they took Russell and about half a dozen other ones to trial. I went up to the trial and I sat down in the first row. It was a three-week trial and I sat there every day to support Russell. The jury could see that Russell had friends in the courtroom. On April 24, 1974, Russell and the other ones were all found not guilty. This was the same spring that Jimmy filed his lawsuit. Spring 1974 was a charm for this Irishman’s friends.

After his victory Russell took me to New York and we met with Fat Tony Salerno at the Vesuvio. Russell and I told him that Tony Pro and Jimmy had a personal beef over Tony Pro’s pension, but that we would appreciate any help Tony could give to Jimmy later on at the 1976 convention. Fat Tony always had a cigar in his mouth. He said he would not stand in Jimmy’s way. He would not try to tell Pro what to do, but he was not with Pro on this issue. Jimmy had done a lot of good in the past.

Around May or June of 1974 I got a surprise visit at my Local 326 office down by the train station. Who should waltz in but John Mitchell. I didn’t ask the man how he found me or how he even knew who I was. He said he only had a minute and he just wanted to say hello and to tell me that I should “Tell Jimmy I was asking for him. Tell him to just enjoy his pension and play with his grandchildren and to forget about running.” I said, “Thanks for stopping by. Next time I see him I’ll tell him what you said.”

Meanwhile, things were heating up in Detroit at Local 299. Jimmy’s old pal from the early years, Dave Johnson, was still president. The plan was for Dave not to retire until Jimmy was ready to take over the International. But Fitz was putting pressure on Dave to retire early. That way Fitz could appoint his own son Richard as president of the local. Jimmy needed his own man in there in 299 until he got the restrictions off. When the restrictions came off, Dave Johnson was supposed to appoint Jimmy as a business agent to Local 299. That way Jimmy would be a delegate to the 1976 convention and that would make him qualified under the constitution to run against Fitz for president of the International.

Dave Johnson started getting hang-up calls at home with people laughing into the phone. Somebody fired a shotgun at the window of his office down at the union hall. About a week before Jimmy lost his first round in court on the restriction lawsuit, somebody blew up Dave’s forty-five-foot cabin cruiser. It was all a message from Fitz and his people.

Fitz’s son Richard announced that he was gong to run for president of Local 299 against Dave. Richard claimed that Jimmy himself was responsible for the explosion that blew up Dave’s boat. This kind of thing would only make a man like Dave Johnson stronger. Dave was good people. He stayed in there as president and they made a deal and made Richard the vice president. Later on somebody blew up Richard’s car, but Jimmy would never have blown up Fitz’s son’s car. Jimmy wouldn’t want to put his own son on the front line and expose the kid to retaliation.

Jimmy put the word out that he was going to run no matter what the judges ended up saying. If he lost in his appeal he was just going to defy the restrictions. If they wanted to try to put him back in jail, the ball would be in their court. No matter what, Jimmy was running in 1976. Some people put together an organization called HOFFA, for How Old Friends Feel Active.

Jimmy was no rat. But Jimmy could puff. Jimmy started saying things like he was going to call in all the bad loans that Fitz, “the fat old man,” had made. A lot of those loans had gone to build casinos for the alleged mob; only under Fitz they were careless with their payments. With Jimmy they always made their payments on the loans. As crazy as it sounds, Jimmy kept saying in public that he was going to expose the alleged mob connections that Fitz had. Jimmy said he was going to expose everything once he got back in office and got his hands on the records. It sounded like Jimmy was going to forfeit some of these loans and take over some of the casinos the way Castro did.

I kept telling Russell that this was just Jimmy’s way; that Jimmy was only puffing. Russell told me to tell Jimmy to relax and stop drawing attention to his friends. Russell mentioned one time that there had already been all that talk about Jimmy ratting to the McClellan Committee and getting Dave Beck indicted so he could get Beck out of the way and take over. Dave Beck was president of the International just before my time. I didn’t know whether to believe that one about Jimmy or not, but I doubted it. Still, Jimmy was going to have a problem if he kept that loose talk up about exposing his friends.
”

On the campaign trail, Jimmy Hoffa often stung like a swarm of bees. Hoffa was quoted in the news as accusing Fitzsimmons of “selling out to mobsters and letting known racketeers into the Teamsters.” He made bold accusations against Fitzsimmons and organized crime that mirrored the language from Hoffa’s autobiography, scheduled for release six months before the 1976 election: “I charge him with permitting underworld establishment of a union insurance scheme…. There will be more and more developments as time goes on and I get my hands on additional information.”

To keep his nose clean and to avoid the appearance of having his own conflicts of interest, Jimmy Hoffa negotiated himself out of coal mining interests he had in northeastern Pennsylvania. If he continued to be in a management position as to the Teamsters who hauled the coal, Hoffa would not appear as lily-white as he needed to appear if he were to continue to sling mud against Fitzsimmons and the “underworld.”