Jimmy Hoffa
From The Kennedy Assassination Resource
James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa
A noted American labor leader with ties to the Mafia. As the President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Hoffa wielded considerable influence. He is also well-known in popular culture for the mysterious circumstances surrounding his still-unexplained disappearance and presumed death.
Hoffa was born in Brazil, Indiana, the son of a poor coal miner. His father died when he was young and Hoffa could not stay in school. Hoffa moved to Lake Orion, Michigan to work in a warehouse. He developed a reputation as a tough street fighter who always stood up for his fellow workers against management. Because of this, Hoffa was fired from his warehouse job and hired as an organizer for Local 299 or the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). He and other IBT organizers battled management goons in their organizing efforts throughout Detroit. Hoffa additionally used organized crime connections to shake down an association of small grocery stores, leading to his first criminal conviction, for which he paid a fine. After he rose to a leadership position in Local 299, Hoffa continued to work with crime syndicates in Detroit, using the threat of labor trouble to induce business to use a mob controlled clothier.
Hoffa took over the presidency of the Teamsters in 1957, when his predecessor, Dave Beck, was convicted on bribery charges and imprisoned. Hoffa worked tirelessly to expand the union and in 1964 succeeded in bringing virtually all North American over-the-road truck drivers under a single national master freight agreement. Hoffa then pushed to try to bring the airlines and other transport employees into the union. This was of great concern to the United States government and business as a strike involving all transportation systems would be devastating for the national economy.
Hoffa had a working relationship with racketeers, some of whom had played an important part in his election as General President of the Teamsters. Several Teamster chapter presidents were convicted for mob related crimes but often would continue serving as union leaders, such as Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano in New Jersey. Cleveland Corn-Sugar War survivor Moe Dalitz and Allen Dorfman bankrolled many mob casinos, hotels and other construction projects from the Teamsters pension fund.
John F. Kennedy and his successor Lyndon B. Johnson both put pressure on Hoffa through John's brother Robert F. Kennedy, the Attorney General, attempting to investigate his activities and disrupt his ever-growing union. The Kennedys in particular were sure that Hoffa had pocketed a great deal of union money.
In 1964, Hoffa was convicted of attempted bribery of a grand juror and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. On December 23, 1971, however, he was released when Republican President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence to time served on the condition he not participate in union activities for ten years (allegations exist that an illegal $300,000 payment made this possible). Hoffa was planning to sue to invalidate that restriction in order to reassert his power over the Teamsters when he disappeared on July 30, 1975 from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox Restaurant, Michigan. He had been due to meet two Mafia leaders, Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone from Detroit and Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano from Union City, New Jersey and New York City.
His fate is a mystery that continues to this day and there are many guesses as to what became of him.
Former Mafioso Bill Bonanno claimed in his book, "Bound by Honor," that Hoffa was shot and placed in the trunk of a car that was then run through a car compactor. Mob hitman Richard Kuklinski also claimed in one of his televised interviews that Hoffa was now a "car bumper."
Hoffa was declared legally dead and a death certificate issued on 30 July 1982, seven years after his disappearance. Rumors of sightings have persisted for years.
DNA evidence examined in 2001 placed Hoffa in the car of longtime Teamster associate Charles O'Brien, despite O'Brien's claims Hoffa had never been in his car. Police interviews later that year failed to produce any indictments.
In July 2003, after the convicted killer Richard Powell told authorities that a briefcase containing a syringe used to subdue Hoffa was buried at a house in Hampton Township, Michigan, another backyard was examined and excavated. Again, nothing was found.
In 2004, Charles Brandt, a former prosecutor and Chief Deputy Attorney General of Delaware, published the book I Heard You Paint Houses ("painting houses" is a euphemism for murder, alluding to the splatter of blood on walls, and "doing my own carpentry" is a euphemism for the disposal of the body) in which he recounts a series of confessions by Sheeran regarding Hoffa's murder. Brandt claimed that Sheeran had begun contacting him because he wished to assuage feelings of guilt. Over the course of several years, he spoke numerous times by phone to Brandt (which Brandt recorded) during which he acknowledged his role as Hoffa's killer, acting on orders from the Mafia. He claimed to have used his friendship with Hoffa to lure him to a bogus meeting in Bloomfield Hills and drive him to a house in northwestern Detroit, where he shot him twice before fleeing and leaving Hoffa's body behind. An updated version of Brandt's book claims that Hoffa's body was cremated within an hour of Sheeran's departure.
