I Heard You Paint Houses Read online

  “You got so used to Jimmy winning it was hard to picture him losing back to back to Bobby. You just knew he wouldn’t take this lying down.

  Still and all, the way he played the first trial in Tennessee he ended up turning a slap on the wrist into serious jail time. He kept going back with cash to bribe the jury even though he kept getting caught. It was like the kangaroo kept bopping the back of his head and he never caught on and he kept on walking into it.

  Some of our friends questioned Jimmy’s judgment, blabbing out loud like that to a man he hardly knew, Ed Partin. In our world you’ve got to keep things inside if you expect to be trusted. You don’t want people losing respect for you.

  I later heard from Harold Gibbons that after that thing in Chicago, Jimmy was careful to sign everything “James R. Hoffa.””

  At the time of his announcement for the U.S. Senate, Bobby Kennedy had spent three and a half years targeting Hoffa and the Teamsters. Bobby Kennedy’s efforts had resulted in the indictment of 201 Teamsters officials and the conviction of 126 of them.

  Thanks to Bobby Kennedy, mobsters everywhere were going to be under such public scrutiny that they wouldn’t be able to gather together at a public restaurant without it being raided. On September 22, 1966, a table full of mobsters from around the country having lunch at La Stella restaurant in Forest Hills in Queens, New York, were arrested by the police. Included in the group that was taken in, harassed, and released without charges were Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante, Joe Colombo, and Carlo Gambino. A month later the same group defiantly held another meeting at La Stella, only this time they brought their lawyer, Frank Ragano, with them.

  Bobby Kennedy’s campaign against organized crime, and especially the methodology he devised—gathering intelligence, focusing on targets, making deals with informants, employing sophisticated electronic surveillance, and insisting on the pooling of information by disparate and often competitive government agencies—set the stage for every action the federal government has taken against organized crime since. Today no one questions the existence of organized crime or the commitment of the federal government and the FBI to its eradication. Today, thanks to Bobby Kennedy, organized crime is hardly thought of as a local police problem. The head may have been cut off, but the dog never died. The damage done by Bobby Kennedy to the power of organized crime and to mobster Teamsters was irreversible.

  “Jimmy Hoffa didn’t care anything about money. He gave it away. But he did like the power. And jail or no jail, he wasn’t about to give that power away. First, he was going to do whatever he could to keep from going to jail. If he went to jail he was still going to rule from jail while he did whatever it took to get out of jail. Once he got out of jail he was going to take back control of everything. And I was going to help him.”

  In 1965 a defense motion for a new trial was filed in Chattanooga on the grounds that jurors in that trial were having sex with prostitutes. The motion alleged that prostitutes had been arranged for and provided by U.S. marshals as inducement for the jurors to side with the government. The motion was accompanied by the affidavits of four Chattanooga prostitutes. One of them, a Marie Monday, claimed that the judge in Chattanooga had told her that he was out to “get Hoffa.” One can only imagine the laughter that this bit of legal “improv” engendered in Chattanooga’s hallowed halls of justice. The judge laughed the motion out of court. The government took one of the prostitutes to trial and convicted her of perjury. Whereupon Marie Monday promptly recanted her affidavit.

  At the July 1966 Miami Beach Teamsters Convention, Jimmy Hoffa amended the IBT constitution to create a new office—the office of general vice president. That officer had all the power necessary to run the union in the event the president went to jail. Hoffa installed his perceived puppet, Frank Fitzsimmons, as the new general vice president. Hoffa gave himself a raise from $75,000 a year to $100,000 a year, the same salary as the president of the United States. Only Hoffa’s salary would now contain a provision that the salary would continue to be paid in the event the president went to jail.

  It was explained to the delegates that the reason Hoffa should continue to receive his pay while in prison was that prison is the equivalent of traveling for a rest period to conserve Hoffa’s health, something like the expenses incurred in traveling to go deep-sea fishing. Hoffa had the delegates approve the payment of all past legal fees and expenses, regardless of whether he lost the case or not. Those expenses amounted to $1,277,680 as of the date of the convention. Hoffa had the delegates approve the payment of all of his future legal expenses, whatever they might turn out to be.

  Meanwhile, Hoffa’s Chattanooga appeal made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal because it presented a novel issue involving Hoffa’s constitutional right to counsel and whether that right was violated by Partin’s presence at the Andrew Jackson Hotel. The appeal was being heard at the height of the “criminal law revolution,” the decade from 1961 to 1971 when criminal rights were being created where none had previously existed. Hoffa’s appeal was being handled competently by Joseph A. Fanelli, a seasoned appellate lawyer new to the Hoffa team. Walter Sheridan wrote that after oral argument in the Supreme Court the prosecution team was “not at all certain when it was over how the Justices would rule.”

  Just to be on the safe side, however, the Hoffa comedy troupe decided to strong-arm liberal Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. Walter Sheridan wrote about this bizarre act of appellate “improv”: “A Teamsters official approached the brother of Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. The Justice’s brother, who owned a brewery, was told that if his brother did not vote right on the Hoffa case, the brewery would be closed down and would never reopen.”

  Despite the strong-arm tactics, the Supreme Court ruled against Jimmy Hoffa on the merits of his appeal. Justice Brennan sided with the majority opinion, which was written by Justice Potter Stewart. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote a minority opinion and voted to reverse Hoffa’s conviction. Warren called the government’s clandestine use of Partin “an affront to the quality and fairness of federal law enforcement.”

  Nine days after Justice Potter Stewart’s opinion the justice received a letter from an old college chum on behalf of Jimmy Hoffa. The letter was from William Loeb, the owner and publisher of New Hamphire’s influential Manchester Union Leader. Loeb informed his friend Justice Stewart that an unnamed high government official had assured him that Bobby Kennedy had used illegal wiretaps in his zeal to get Hoffa. An important fact Loeb had left out of the letter was that he had been promised a huge loan from the Teamsters pension fund, a loan he subsequently received. Had it been proved that Hoffa’s attorneys put Loeb up to writing this letter they would have faced ethics proceedings, but the matter was not pursued.

  Hoffa’s lawyers filed a motion for a rehearing of Justice Potter’s decision. Such motions are routinely made but rarely granted, inappropriate letters from men of influence notwithstanding.

  While the rehearing motion was pending the Hoffa troupe filed with the Supreme Court something novel to the law, something they called a “Motion for Relief Because of Government Wiretapping, Electronic Eavesdropping, and Other Intrusions.” The motion was supported by an affidavit from a freelance wiretapper and electronic eavesdropping expert named Benjamin “Bud” Nichols. In his affidavit Nichols claimed that he had met with Walter Sheridan in Chattanooga just before the start of the jury-tampering trial. Nichols claimed that Sheridan had paid him to bug the phones in the jurors’ rooms and he then planted bugs on the phones in the jurors’ rooms at Sheridan’s direction. There was a slight problem with the new Hoffa motion—there are no phones in jurors’ rooms in Chattanooga or anywhere else in the country

  The laughter died down at 3:30 P.M. March 7, 1967, when, three years and three days after his conviction for jury tampering, Jimmy Hoffa entered the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. The March 17, 1967, issue of Life magazine featured a photo essay entitled,
“Inmate 33298-NE: James Riddle Hoffa—A Swaggering Man on a Long Cold Walk.” One of the photographs depicted a Valentine heart with Jimmy Hoffa’s picture in the center and around the heart the words “Always Thinking of You.” For years the Valentine had adorned Walter Sheridan’s office door at the Department of Justice. Valentine’s Day, February 14th, the day of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in Al Capone’s Chicago, Jimmy Hoffa’s birthday. The essay raised the question “Whether this spells the end of Hoffa’s power in the huge union—or just a pause. Right now not many union men would bet against Hoffa’s bounding back.”

  chapter twenty-one

  All He Did for Me Was to Hang Up

  Was Hoffa’s incarceration on March 7, 1967, as Life magazine had put it, “the end of Hoffa’s power in the huge union—or just a pause?” Was the transfer of leadership to Fitzsimmons a transfer of title only, or was there a substantive change blowing in the wind? From his perspective on the front lines of union combat and violence in Philadelphia in 1967, Frank Sheeran was likely the first Teamsters leader, the first “Hoffa man,” to feel the chill of a new wind.

  “The night before Jimmy went to school I drove down from Wilmington to Washington to see him. Jimmy gave me $25,000 to give to the lawyers for Johnny Sullivan and the two others who got indicted for shooting John Gorey and his girlfriend Rita at the 107 union hall in 1964. Gorey was with the Voice, and the FBI tried to say he got whacked because he was a rebel. The girl was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man, that’s all—a civilian casualty.

  Gorey was with the Voice all right, but if that was the case there were more important people than Gorey to whack. Charlie Meyers would have been the first to go, not Gorey. Meyers was the head of the Voice. Gorey was nobody big in the Voice. And what corruption was there to expose? There was nothing to expose. Everybody knew about the corruption.

  Gorey was a gambler. More times if a guy owed money from gambling they would negotiate with him rather than do something drastic. But it all depends on the circumstances. Maybe the guy defied them, didn’t show respect. Or maybe he owed too much money to negotiate about. Or maybe they’d been negotiating and negotiating with the guy and they ran out of patience. Or maybe they needed to send a message to other customers who started owing, say if the economy was bad or something. More likely they would just bust a guy up. Unless they started something and it got out of whack.

  But that matter with Gorey, that was making unnecessary problems. Gorey didn’t bother anybody. That could have been done by pushing him around a little bit. That was a waste, and the girl, too. I’ll say one good thing about today. If you don’t pay they just stop taking your bets. They put the word out and nobody takes your bets until you do pay.

  I know they are trying to say Jimmy had it done. I can tell you without a doubt Jimmy Hoffa would not have somebody do something like that—whack a guy and his girlfriend right in the union hall. Why did Jimmy give me the money for the shooters’ lawyers? All I know is he told me, “I made a promise.” That was good enough for me. It’s not my business why Jimmy gave me the $25,000 for the lawyers. That kind of money was nothing to Jimmy if he wanted to do a favor. He probably got asked to make a donation and that was his donation. Maybe after the fact, whoever asked Jimmy for a contribution told Jimmy that Gorey was a Voice troublemaker anyway. I don’t know about that, but he didn’t get whacked on account of Jimmy. Gorey was a low-key Irish guy that didn’t stand out in any way. I am sure Jimmy Hoffa did not even know who the man was.

  Everybody downtown knew I was going to Teamsters headquarters in Washington to collect Jimmy’s donation for the lawyers for Sullivan and them. When I got back to Philly, Big Bobby Marino asked me for the money. Bobby told me he’d give it to the lawyers for me. I asked him if he thought I was made with a finger. Thirteen years later I got indicted for having Big Bobby whacked, but the jury found me not guilty.

  The next guy to come up to me to “help” me get the money to the lawyers was Harry “The Hunchback” Riccobene. I said, “No way. The only ones who are going to get this money are the lawyers.” Guys like Harry the Hunchback and Big Bobby wouldn’t give a crap about the guys going to trial. They wanted to get the money for themselves. There was always a lot of treachery among certain people downtown.

  When I got arrested for the DeGeorge murder in 1967, shortly after Jimmy went to school, Big Bobby Marino went down to Washington to ask Frank Fitzsimmons for bail money for me. Fitzsimmons turned him down. Marino didn’t go down to Washington to see Fitz for me. We had no business together. We were not social friends. Big Bobby was there for himself. They were trying to get it into their own pocket on your misery, that’s the kind they were. I sat there in the Philadelphia Detention Center for four months until the judge let me sign my own bail. When I got out I chased Big Bobby down. He went about 6'6" and weighted 350 pounds easily. But he didn’t want any trouble from me.

  When I got out of jail I asked Fitz for my expenses and he turned me down. Jimmy would never hesitate to get you squared away. I called Russell, and Russell made a call and got my money for me from Fitz. I got thirty-five from Fitz down in Washington. They left it for me at the Market Inn. That was a dry spot.

  A dry spot is a place where money is hidden. It’s like a safe house that you lay low in for a while that nobody knows about. Only it’s for hiding money. A safe house is like a civilian house on a normal street that’s not connected to anybody. A dry spot could be temporary, until the money is picked up. The Market Inn was the place for that. It was a dry spot and it was a drop spot. You’d drop the package of money off there with the maitre d’ until the party picked it up. The maitre d’ didn’t have to know what was in the package. It was safe until somebody came for it. I’m pretty sure the Market Inn is still there on E Street in Washington, but I don’t know if they use it for that anymore.

  The senators and congressmen and other people would go in there to pick up small packages that were left for them. Nothing serious would be left like that. No half-million or anything like that, but sums under, say, fifty thousand. The Market Inn was quite a place in the old days. I had to go down there for the thirty-five and I had to go to New York for the fifteen to make fifty. I got the fifteen package from lawyer Jacques Schiffer’s office.

  The DeGeorge thing was at most a manslaughter, but Arlen Specter, before he became a U.S. senator, was the D.A. in Philly, and he was trying to make a name for himself. Specter had been the lawyer for the Warren Commission and he had a bit of limelight from inventing the single-bullet theory to explain all the bullet wounds in Dallas on President Kennedy and Governor Connelly.

  The way the DeGeorge thing happened is, I was head of a local down in Delaware. About a year before he went to school Jimmy split 107 into three locals, figuring it would cut down on the violence that way. He gave me the charter for a new local in Wilmington, Delaware, Local 326. I became acting president of Local 326 until an election could be held and I could be voted in by the rank and file of that local. The first thing Jimmy wanted me to do was go up to Philly and fire these five disruptive organizers that the 107 president, Mike Hession, was afraid to fire. I drove up I-95 and fired Johnny Sullivan, who was with McGreal and was out on his appeal on the Gorey thing. I fired Stevie Bouras, who only got his job because he fired a gun into the ceiling and scared Hession. I fired another guy, but I don’t remember his name. There was so much going on in those days it’s hard to remember it all, but I do remember what Jimmy sent me up there to do. I fired Big Bobby Marino and Benny Bedachio. They had friends. I wasn’t too popular up there, but nobody tried to shoot a gun into a ceiling around me.

  After I fired them all I stayed in Philly awhile to make sure there was no backlash. Then I went back down to Delaware, which is about thirty miles south. I was learning my new position. I wanted to justify Jimmy’s faith in me by giving me the charter. I spent two weeks driving a car hauler at the Chrysler automobile plant in Newark, Delaware, for Anchor Motors. The c
ar haulers have different issues than the freight haulers. I had only been a freight hauler and I didn’t want anybody complaining that I didn’t understand about car hauling. I learned how to drive the cars on the trailers so I would know what I was doing on grievances.

  At 326 I covered all my barns (trucking companies) every morning. I got out. I didn’t sit still. I like being with people. I checked in with the men to see how things were going. You make them feel respected. You don’t buy respect. You earn it. I made sure the companies were putting into the pension fund and living up to their end. If the companies weren’t putting into the fund and you weren’t checking you could get sued.

  That didn’t mean you couldn’t do some good for yourself. If you organized a new company you could give them a waiver of donating their share into the pension fund for up to a year. That way they could adjust to the thing. Maybe raise their rates to their customers or whatever, so they would have time to prepare for the extra overhead of the pension donations. Let’s say the company has to donate $1 an hour for each employee. For a forty-hour week that’s $40. If he’s got a hundred employees, that’s $4,000 a week. If you gave him a six-month waiver, that’s a little over $100,000 he saves. Only it’s more than $1 an hour to begin with. He puts his savings on the table and you both share it under the table—everybody’s taken care of that way. Now the men don’t get hurt at all. Because all Teamsters pensions are retroactive to the day you started with the company, even if the company wasn’t contributing. They got their exact pension whether you gave the waiver or not.