I Heard You Paint Houses Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue “Russ & Frank”

  Chapter One “They Wouldn’t Dare”

  Chapter Two What It Is

  Chapter Three Get Yourself Another Punching Bag

  Chapter Four Little Egypt University

  Chapter Five 411 Days

  Chapter Six Doing What I Had to Do

  Chapter Seven Waking Up in America

  Chapter Eight Russell Bufalino

  Chapter Nine Prosciutto Bread and Homemade Wine

  Chapter Ten All the Way Downtown

  Chapter Eleven Jimmy

  Chapter Twelve “I Heard You Paint Houses”

  Chapter Thirteen They Didn’t Make a Parachute Big Enough

  Chapter Fourteen The Gunman Had No Mask

  Chapter Fifteen Respect with an Envelope

  Chapter Sixteen Give Them a Little Message

  Chapter Seventeen Nothing More Than a Mockery

  Photo Insert

  Chapter Eighteen Just Another Lawyer Now

  Chapter Nineteen Tampering with the Very Soul of the Nation

  Chapter Twenty Hoffa’s Comedy Troupe

  Chapter Twenty-One All He Did for Me Was to Hang Up

  Chapter Twenty-Two Pacing in His Cage

  Chapter Twenty-Three Nothing Comes Cheap

  Chapter Twenty-Four He Needed a Favor and That Was That

  Chapter Twenty-Five That Wasn’t Jimmy’s Way

  Chapter Twenty-Six All Hell Will Break Loose

  Chapter Twenty-Seven July 30, 1975

  Chapter Twenty-Eight To Paint a House

  Chapter Twenty-Nine Everybody Bleeds

  Chapter Thirty “Those Responsible Have Not Gotten Off Scot-Free”

  Chapter Thirty-One Under a Vow of Secrecy

  Afterword

  Epilogue

  Sources

  Copyright

  To my wife,

  NANCY POOLE BRANDT,

  to my mother,

  CAROLINA DIMARCO BRANDT,

  and to my father’s memory

  Acknowledgments

  I owe a debt of gratitude to my incredibly beautiful, talented, and wonderful wife, Nancy, who gave each chapter and each revision a hard, honest, and sensible edit before I sent it to the publisher. While I was in New York and Philadelphia working on the book Nancy took care of everything else and gave me daily inspiration, encouragement, and support. On the times Nancy would accompany me to visit Frank Sheeran, he would light up like a young man. And I owe a deep sense of gratitude for the encouragement of our supportive children Tripp Wier, Mimi Wier, and Jenny Rose Brandt.

  I owe a debt of gratitude to my remarkable mother, who at 89, cooked Italian food for me, put up with me, and encouraged me during the long weeks I stayed in her Manhattan apartment and sat at my laptop.

  I owe a debt of gratitude to my dear friend, the publishing icon William G. Thompson—first to publish both Stephen King and John Grisham—who generously lent his expertise as editorial advisor in developing and executing the project.

  I struck pay dirt when Frank Weimann of the Literary Group agreed to be my agent. Frank took the project to heart as a piece of history that would otherwise be lost, gave the book its title, and gave Frank Sheeran a nudge in the right direction for his final taped interview.

  A special thanks to the talented Kristin Sperber, editor at Steerforth, who, among other things, caught me writing like a lawyer from time to time.

  When Neil Reshen suggested that my agent contact Steerforth Press we suddenly had my book accepted by a publisher who is always thinking. Thank you Neil, for steering us to the exceptional Chip Fleischer and his aide, Helga Schmidt.

  Thanks to those writers, such as Dan Moldea, Steven Brill, Victor Riesel, and Jonathon Kwitny, whose skillful investigative reporting, at risk of physical harm, uncovered and preserved so much of the history of Jimmy Hoffa, his times, and his disappearance.

  Thank you to those agents, investigators, and prosecuting attorneys and their staff whose efforts created many of the headlines and news stories I consulted.

  Thanks to my creative cousin, Carmine Zozzora, for his daily encouragement that kept me focused when the going was rough and for his wise counsel every bit of the way, especially when I would bellyache and he would repeat: “Just write the book; the rest will take care of itself.”

  A big heap of gratitude to all my superb friends and family who rooted for this book, and to those pals to whom I repeatedly turned for advice, encouragement, and support, especially Marty Shafran, Peter Bosch, Steve Simmons, Leo Murray, Gary Goldsmith, Barbara Penna, Rosemary Kowalski, Jeff Weiner, Tracy Bay, Chris DeCarufel, Jan Miller, Theo Gund, and Molly and Mike Ward. I owe a deep debt in countless ways to Rob Sutcliffe.

  Thanks Lynn Shafran for all your advice, and especially for bringing the late Ted Feury to Nancy and me. Thank you, Ted, so much.

  Thanks to the award-winning illustrator, author, and artist, my friend Uri Shulevitz, who more than twenty years ago encouraged me to start writing professionally.

  And a belated thanks to my inspiring eleventh-grade English teacher at Stuyvesant High School in 1957, Edwin Herbst.

  prologue

  “Russ & Frank”

  In a summer cottage by a lake in a room full of tearful and anxious members of Jimmy Hoffa’s family, the FBI found a yellow pad. Hoffa kept the pad next to his phone. On the pad Hoffa had written in pencil “Russ & Frank.”

  “Russ & Frank” were close friends and staunch allies of Jimmy Hoffa. The giant, iron-muscled Frank was so close and loyal to Jimmy throughout Jimmy’s ordeals with the law and with Bobby Kennedy that Frank was thought of as family.

  On that day by the lake the family in the room feared deep in their souls that only a very close friend, someone trusted, could have gotten near enough to harm a cautious, vigilant Jimmy Hoffa—a man who was keenly aware of his deadly enemies. And on that day “Russ & Frank,” mob enforcer Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and his godfather, Russell “McGee” Bufalino, became leading suspects in the most notorious disappearance in American history.

  Every book and serious study on the Hoffa disappearance has alleged that Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, a staunch Hoffa supporter within the Teamsters, had turned on his friend and mentor. These studies allege that Sheeran was a conspirator and perpetrator, present when Hoffa was killed, and that the killing was sanctioned and planned by Russell “McGee” Bufalino. Among these studies are meticulously researched books, including The Hoffa Wars, by investigative reporter Dan Moldea; The Teamsters, by Court TV’s founder Steven Brill; and Hoffa, by Professor Arthur Sloane.

  On September 7, 2001, more than twenty-six years after the mystery began, a family member who had been at the cottage by the lake sharing that terrifying time with his mother and his sister held a press conference. Hoffa’s son, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, had just had his hopes raised by a new development in his father’s disappearance. The FBI revealed that a DNA test done on a strand of hair proved that Jimmy Hoffa had been inside a car long suspected of being used in the crime. Fox News’s senior correspondent Eric Shawn asked James if his father could have been lured into that car by several of the other well-known suspects. James shook his head in response to each man on the list and at the end said, “No, my father didn’t know these people.” When Shawn asked if Frank Sheeran could have lured his father into the car, James nodded his head and said, “Yes, my father would have gotten into a car with him.”

  In closing his press conference, James expressed to the media his wish that the case would be solved by a “deathbed confession.” At the time he made this request, Frank Sh
eeran was the only man among the original suspects who was still living and sufficiently aged to give a “deathbed confession.” The press conference took place four days before the tragic events of September 11, 2001. James P.’s scheduled appearance on Larry King Live for the next week was canceled.

  A month later, and with the Hoffa story crowded off the front page, Jimmy’s only daughter, Judge Barbara Crancer, telephoned Frank Sheeran from her chambers in St. Louis. Judge Crancer, in the manner of her legendary father, got to the point pretty quickly and made a personal appeal to Sheeran to provide her family closure by telling what he knew about her father’s disappearance. “Do the right thing,” she said to him. Following his attorney’s advice, Sheeran revealed nothing and respectfully referred Barbara to his counsel.

  This wasn’t the first time Judge Barbara Crancer had written or called the Irishman with the aim of unlocking the secrets in his soul. On March 6, 1995, Barbara had written Frank: “It is my personal belief that there are many people who called themselves loyal friends who know what happened to James R. Hoffa, who did it and why. The fact that not one of them has ever told his family—even under a vow of secrecy—is painful to me. I believe you are one of those people.”

  On October 25, 2001, a week after Barbara’s telephone call, Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, then in his eighties and using a walker to get around, heard a knock on the patio door of his ground-floor apartment. It was two young FBI agents. They were friendly, relaxed, and very respectful to this man nearing the end of his life. They were hoping he had softened with age, perhaps even repented. They were looking for that “deathbed confession.” They said they were too young to remember the case, but they had read thousands of pages of the file. They were up front about the recent phone call Sheeran had received from Barbara, telling him straight out they had discussed the call with her. As he had done repeatedly since July 30, 1975, the day Jimmy disappeared, Sheeran sadly directed the FBI agents to his lawyer, the former district attorney of Philadelphia, F. Emmett Fitzpatrick, Esq.

  Failing to persuade Sheeran to cooperate and give a “deathbed confession,” the FBI announced on April 2, 2002, that it had turned over its complete, 16,000-page file to the Michigan district attorney and had released 1,330 pages of that file to the media and to Jimmy Hoffa’s two children. There would be no federal charges. Finally, after nearly twenty-seven years, the FBI had given up.

  On September 3, 2002, almost a year to the day after James P.’s press conference, the State of Michigan gave up too and closed its file, expressing “continued condolences” to the Hoffa children.

  In announcing his decision at a press conference Michigan District Attorney David Gorcyca was quoted as saying: “Unfortunately, this has the markings of a great ‘whodunit’ novel without the final chapter.”

  “I Heard You Paint Houses” is a “whodunit,” but it is not a novel. It is a history based on one-on-one interviews of Frank Sheeran, most of which were tape-recorded. I conducted the first interview in 1991 at Sheeran’s apartment, shortly after my partner and I were able to secure Sheeran’s premature release from jail on medical grounds. Immediately after that 1991 session Sheeran had second thoughts about the interrogative nature of the interview process and terminated it. He had admitted far more than he was happy with. I told him to get back in touch with me if he changed his mind and was willing to submit to my questioning.

  In 1999 Sheeran’s daughters arranged a private audience for their aging and physically disabled father with Monsignor Heldufor of St. Dorothy’s Church in Philadelphia. Sheeran met with the monsignor, who granted Sheeran absolution for his sins so that he could be buried in a Catholic cemetery. Frank Sheeran said to me: “I believe there is something after we die. If I got a shot at it, I don’t want to lose that shot. I don’t want to close the door.”

  Following his audience with the monsignor, Sheeran contacted me, and at Sheeran’s request I attended a meeting at his lawyer’s office. At the meeting Sheeran agreed to submit to my questioning, and the interviews began again and continued for four years. I brought to the interview process my experiences as a former homicide and death penalty prosecutor, a lecturer on cross-examination, a student of interrogation, and the author of several articles on the U.S. Supreme Court’s exclusionary rule regarding confessions. “You’re worse than any cop I ever had to deal with,” Sheeran said to me once.

  I spent countless hours just hanging around with the Irishman, meeting alleged mob figures, driving to Detroit to locate the scene of the Hoffa disappearance, driving to Baltimore to find the scene of two underworld deliveries made by Sheeran, meeting with Sheeran’s lawyer, and meeting his family and friends, intimately getting to know the man behind the story. I spent countless hours on the phone and in person, prodding and picking away at the storehouse of material that formed the basis of this book.

  More often than not, the first rule in a successful interrogation is to have faith that the subject truly wants to confess, even when he is denying and lying. This was the case with Frank Sheeran. The second rule is to keep the subject talking, and that was never a problem with the Irishman either. Let the words flow and the truth finds its own way out.

  Some part of Frank Sheeran had been wanting to get this story off his chest for a long time. In 1978 there had been a controversy about whether Sheeran had confessed over the phone, perhaps while he was under the influence of alcohol, to Steven Brill, author of The Teamsters. The FBI believed Sheeran had confessed to Brill and pressured Brill for the tape. Dan Moldea, author of The Hoffa Wars, wrote in an article that over breakfast at a hotel, Brill told Moldea he possessed a tape-recorded confession from Sheeran. But Brill, perhaps wisely to keep from becoming a witness in need of protection, denied it publicly in the New York Times.

  Accordingly, throughout most of the arduous interview process, an effort was made to protect and preserve Sheeran’s rights, so that his words would not constitute a legally admissible confession in a court of law.

  As the book was written, Frank Sheeran read and approved each chapter. He then re-read and approved the entire manuscript.

  On December 14, 2003, Frank Sheeran died. Six weeks earlier, during his final illness, he gave me a final recorded interview from his hospital bed. He told me that he had made his confession and received communion from a visiting priest. Deliberately omitting the use of any protective legal language, Frank Sheeran faced a video camera for his “moment of truth.” He held up a copy of “I Heard You Paint Houses” and stood behind all the material in the book you are about to read, including his role in what happened to Jimmy Hoffa on July 30, 1975.

  The following day, a week or so before he lost his strength and stamina, Frank Sheeran asked me to pray with him, to say the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary with him, which we did together.

  Ultimately, Frank Sheeran’s words are admissible in the court of public opinion and so to be judged by you, the reader, as part of the history of the past century.

  The thread of this story is Frank Sheeran’s unique and fascinating life. The witty Irishman was raised a devout Catholic and was a tough child of the Great Depression; a combat-hardened hero of World War II; a high-ranking official in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; a man alleged by Rudy Giuliani in a Civil RICO suit to be “acting in concert with” La Cosa Nostra’s ruling commission—one of only two non-Italians on Guiliani’s list of twenty-six top mob figures, which included the sitting bosses of the Bonnano, Genovese, Colombo, Luchese, Chicago, and Milwaukee families as well as various underbosses; a convicted felon, mob enforcer, and legendary stand-up guy; and a father of four daughters and a beloved grandfather.

  Because of all that was positive in Frank Sheeran’s complex life, including his military service and his love for his children and grandchildren, as a pallbearer I helped to carry the Irishman’s green coffin draped with an American flag to his final resting place.

  Here is the final chapter of the Hoffa tragedy, a crime that has hurt and h
aunted everyone connected with it, including those who carried it out, but a crime that has especially hurt and haunted the family of Jimmy Hoffa in their effort to lay to rest their father’s fate.

  Author’s Note: The portions of this book in Frank Sheeran’s voice, derived from hundreds of hours of interviews, are indicated by quote marks. Some sections and some chapters written by me add critical detail and background information.

  chapter one

  “They Wouldn’t Dare”

  “I asked my boss, Russell “McGee” Bufalino, to let me call Jimmy at his cottage by the lake. I was on a peace mission. All I was trying to do at that particular time was keep this thing from happening to Jimmy.

  I reached out for Jimmy on Sunday afternoon, July 27, 1975. Jimmy was gone by Wednesday, July 30. Sadly, as we say, gone to Australia—down under. I will miss my friend until the day I join him.

  I was at my own apartment in Philly using my own phone when I made the long-distance call to Jimmy’s cottage at Lake Orion near Detroit. If I had been in on the thing on Sunday I would have used a pay phone, not my own phone. You don’t survive as long as I did by making calls about important matters from your own phone. I wasn’t made with a finger. My father used the real thing to get my mother pregnant.

  While I was in my kitchen standing by my rotary wall phone getting ready to dial the number I knew by heart, I gave some consideration to just how I was going to approach Jimmy. I learned during my years of union negotiations that it always was best to review things in your mind first before you opened your mouth. And besides that, this call was not going to be an easy one.

  When he got out of jail on a presidential pardon by Nixon in 1971, and he began fighting to reclaim the presidency of the Teamsters, Jimmy became very hard to talk to. Sometimes you see that with guys when they first get out. Jimmy became reckless with his tongue—on the radio, in the papers, on television. Every time he opened his mouth he said something about how he was going to expose the mob and get the mob out of the union. He even said he was going to keep the mob from using the pension fund. I can’t imagine certain people liked hearing that their golden goose would be killed if he got back in. All this coming from Jimmy was hypocritical to say the least, considering Jimmy was the one who brought the so-called mob into the union and the pension fund in the first place. Jimmy brought me into the union through Russell. With very good reason I was concerned for my friend more than a little bit.