"I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa (36 page)

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I’d pull on my shirt and the kid would know that was a signal to go to the buck house so Jimmy and I could get a little business done. The guard would look the other way. They made out all right at Christmas, those guards. I think every day was Christmas for some of them in the old days. I saw it tighten up quite a bit over the years when I went to school in the eighties and nineties. I think it was on account of the publicity and the new type of inmate, especially the drug dealers like the Jamaicans and those Cubans that Castro had kicked out.

There was one kid named Gary that Jimmy asked me to help get a job in construction. If they had a job waiting for them they had a good chance at making parole. Gary should have stayed in. When he got out somebody put a whack on him. He was a friend of Tommy Barker, the one that claimed later on when I had my trial in 1980 that I told him to whack a guy named Fred Gawronski for spilling a bottle of wine on me at a bar in Delaware. Joey McGreal was in there with Jimmy for a while toward the end. Joey had settled down a lot and was good company. Tony Pro was already in waiting for Jimmy. They were still very close when Jimmy came into Lewisburg. Charlie Allen, the rat, was in there for bank robbery. His real name was Charlie Palermo, but he changed it to Charlie Allen. He was “Blinky” Palermo’s nephew. Blinky used to control boxing in America.

Charlie Allen is the one the FBI wired and used to set me up in the late seventies when they were trying to get everybody on their little list for something so they could squeeze us for information on Jimmy’s disappearance. They made a deal with Allen to get me even though they knew he was a baby-rapist and a sodomizer of his own stepdaughter from the time she was five, and they hid that information from my attorney and me. Charlie Allen’s in jail in Louisiana for that one. Can you imagine how much they wanted me when you think of who they used to get me?

At my 1980 trial, my 1981 trial, and my 1982 trial Charlie Allen claimed he was Jimmy’s bodyguard in jail and that he got cut on the cheek defending Jimmy from a rape. That would have made Jimmy laugh if he was listening to the trial in heaven. Allen got cut when he got caught trying to steal some candy bars from a black guy’s candy stash. As far as who took care of who, it was the other way around. Jimmy looked out for Charlie Allen. He’s one of those that Jimmy felt sorry for and asked me to help get a job so he could make parole. I even got him a job. I let him hang around with me. I let him drive me places. Then later on I put him on the payroll at Local 326 as an organizer. I used him as a barking dog, but I’m the one he turned on when they caught him again for making methamphetamine. They let him slide on that, but he couldn’t get out from under the baby rape because it wasn’t federal.

For $3 you could join the inmates for lunch. Wednesday lunch was spaghetti and meatballs. Jimmy loved spaghetti and meatballs. I would give Jimmy my meatballs for a treat. Jimmy loved ice cream, too. Sometimes it would be just a social visit between us. We wouldn’t even have business. One time he got on me about all the watermelon Bill Isabel and I used to eat at the suite in the Edgewater in Chicago. Jimmy didn’t know we had spiked the watermelon with two quarts of rum and plugged it back up. He learned about that trick in Lewisburg from some of the people from Brooklyn with Tony Pro who were doing it.

There was a lot happening on the outside on his appeals and all for Jimmy to talk to me about. I made some drops to Attorney General John Mitchell after Jimmy got out, too, but while he was in Lewisburg there was money going down to Mitchell for Jimmy to get parole or a pardon. The people would take care of the money part from the Vegas skim or from Jimmy’s own money. Russell was very big in Vegas, places like Caesar’s and the Desert Inn. When Jimmy went in everybody was trying to help him get out—Russ, Fitz, Carlos, Santo, all of them. Jimmy complained that maybe Fitz was dragging his heels, but in the beginning he didn’t suspect Fitz of betrayal, just maybe not being aggressive enough, sitting on his rear end, enjoying the job too much.

Right after Jimmy went in somebody sent a message to Allen Dorfman. He was pulling out of his driveway and some people jumped off and fired shotguns into the body of his Cadillac. That’s not the way you kiss somebody; that’s a straight message job.

Dorfman had balls. He was in charge of the pension fund. Nobody was going to scare him into anything. More likely, Jimmy and I thought it was mostly a message for Fitz from some people.

Everybody knew Fitz had no balls. If they fired the shotguns at Fitz’s car he might overreact and run into the arms of the feds. This way, Fitz got the message through what they did to Dorfman. A lot of times when a guy is kissed, it’s a message for somebody else.

After that Fitz didn’t keep an eye on the pension fund and he let people get away with a lot. The loans didn’t have the proper security behind them. They just didn’t even bother to make the payments on a lot of them under Fitz. And why should Dorfman care anymore if Fitz wasn’t going to back him up.

Later on, when I was in jail in the early eighties, I got some bad news about Allen Dorfman. Jackie Presser was head of the Teamsters and he set Dorfman up. Presser was a dry snitch for the FBI, a snitch they keep undercover. He doesn’t wear a wire or testify, but he let’s the feds have everything he hears and he puts out everything the feds tell him to. He put the word out that Dorfman was a rat, and that to save himself from jail Dorfman was going to cooperate with the feds. They used silencers on Dorfman in an outdoor hotel parking lot in broad daylight in Chicago. What I don’t get is how Chicago fell for the idea that Dorfman was a rat. When I was in Chicago twenty years before that, everybody in Chicago knew Presser was a rat. I guess it was a case of when in doubt have no doubt. But it was a bad hit. I’m not saying Chicago did the hit, but it could not have been done in Chicago without Chicago’s approval. Allen Dorfman lived his life a certain way and he was no rat. He was very loyal to Jimmy.
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Allen Dorfman’s attorney was quoted as saying about the ex-Marine combat veteran: “The idea that he would capitulate or throw in the towel is anathema, impossible.” The U.S. attorney in charge of the pending cases against Dorfman confirmed that “Dorfman was not cooperating with us at all.”

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In school Jimmy talked a lot about Partin. Frank Ragano was supposed to be getting an affidavit from Partin that the government set Jimmy up. There was a D.A. in New Orleans who arrested Partin, and they were supposed to get that D.A. off Partin’s back in exchange for the affidavit. The same D.A. arrested Walter Sheridan for bribery, and that was supposed to help Jimmy by making Sheridan look bad in the papers. All that help came from Russell’s and Jimmy’s good friend, Carlos Marcello, the boss in New Orleans who had the D.A.

That was the same D.A. that was arresting everybody for the JFK assassination. Sometimes a friendly D.A. acts like a bird dog to flush rats out of the weeds. When the rat surfaces to cooperate with the D.A., then the people know what to do. I don’t know about that D.A. I was never a party to any discussions about him. But he did arrest Partin and Sheridan during this time.

About a year after Jimmy went in, Bobby Kennedy announced that he was going to run for president. As far as I could tell that didn’t affect Jimmy at all because Jimmy was already supporting Nixon from jail, getting deliveries of cash down to Mitchell and the Nixon campaign. Jimmy was just glad that Bobby was no longer the attorney general.

Everybody approved of Lyndon Johnson’s attorney general, Ramsey Clark. He was the opposite of Bobby Kennedy. He didn’t bother anybody. He was the one they used to call Pamsey Clark. He was against wiretaps.

A couple of months later Bobby Kennedy got it from the terrorist. I know Jimmy lost no sleep over that, but Jimmy hardly mentioned it. I think all of Jimmy’s focus was on getting out. He kept up with events through all the papers that he always read, but he didn’t waste his breath on what was happening on the outside unless it had something to do with getting him out. I do believe Jimmy hated jail way more than he ever hated Bobby.

After a while of spending every night after lockdown in a small cell with nothing to do but think about it, Jimmy knew in his gut he was getting double-crossed by Fitz. Then Jimmy started hating Fitz. But he couldn’t let on to Fitz, because he still needed his help to get out.

The biggest problem Jimmy ended up having in jail was with Tony Pro. Pro was in for extortion. I heard it was something about a trucking company owner who was having problems with his men slowing down on the job. The guy paid Pro, and the drivers went back to full speed. That kind of thing was known to happen once in a while. Only something went wrong and Pro went to jail for it.

Jimmy and Pro were sitting in the dining room one day and Pro wanted some kind of help about his pension from Jimmy, and Jimmy couldn’t give it to him. It had something to do with the different charges they each had. Under the pension law you have some extra problems if you go in for extortion, but not if you go in for the things Jimmy went in for. Pro couldn’t see why Jimmy was going to get his and he couldn’t get his. Pro couldn’t understand why Jimmy couldn’t get that pension thing worked out for him. Somehow one thing led to another and Jimmy supposedly said something about “you people,” like he was better than Pro. Pro said something about ripping Jimmy’s “guts out.” I heard the guards had to break it up. From that day to the day they both died, Jimmy hated Pro and Pro hated Jimmy more.

I never liked Pro. His brothers Sam and Nunz were good people. Whenever Pro couldn’t hold office on account of some conviction or other, he’d appoint one of his brothers. Still and all, Pro was always a strong and loyal supporter of Jimmy Hoffa. Before Jimmy’s jury tampering trial, Pro helped Jimmy raise a lot of green stamps for expenses. Jimmy had Pro’s vote on the executive board any time he wanted it. Pro always gave speeches praising Jimmy.

Pro was with the Genovese family, and from time to time Russell was acting boss over that family, and Pro was way down lower than Russell in the thing, not even close in rank. So I guess Jimmy figured that since he had Russell with him and the two of them were so close, he didn’t have to concern himself about Pro. Russell really and truly liked Jimmy a lot. It wasn’t just show. It was sincere. Russell respected a man who was hard but fair, like himself. Both Jimmy and Russell’s bond was their word. Once they told you something, you could count on it. Whether it was good for you or bad for you, there is no doubt you could count on it.

I wasn’t there for the hollering match with Pro, but I was there when Bill Bufalino walked out on Jimmy. Bill would come regularly from Detroit to Lewisburg just so Jimmy could give him a hard time. They were talking about Partin one day at lunch and Bufalino got fed up with it. I heard him say, “No, I’m not fired. I resign.” He just walked out. He never came back to jail again to see Jimmy as far as I know. Bill was still a lawyer for the union anyway under Fitz, but from now on he wasn’t with Jimmy; he was with Fitz. Bill knew he could do all right without Jimmy. Bill had a jukebox local that he was president of and a lot of other businesses. Bill was very well off. Russell was the godfather to Bill’s daughter.

After a while it was getting to be like Jimmy was one of those tigers you see at the Philadelphia Zoo that spends his time just pacing in his cage, all day long, back and forth, looking at the people.
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Jimmy Hoffa’s first application for parole was turned down in November 1969. Having defeated Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Richard M. Nixon was at that time completing his first year as president and John Mitchell was completing his first year as attorney general. At the time of his 1969 parole application, Hoffa’s appeal of his Chicago conviction was still pending. As a result of the five-year Chicago sentence still hanging over Hoffa’s head, the parole board denied Hoffa’s application. It is unlikely that Hoffa expected to make parole the first time he applied, anyway, no matter how much influence he thought he had with the new administration.

Hoffa’s next parole eligibility date was March 1971. If Hoffa were to make parole at that 1971 hearing he would be out from behind bars in time for the July 1971 Teamsters Convention in Miami Beach, where he would be a shoo-in to be reelected International president. He would no longer need to pull strings from a long distance away. Moreover, he would be in power under favorable circumstances, the likes of which he had never before had. Hoffa easily would win a five-year term in 1971, and Nixon easily would be reelected to a four-year term in 1972. Jimmy Hoffa would control the most powerful labor union in the nation while having an ally in the White House, an ally whose attorney general, instead of hounding him, accepted his cash. An ally with whom he could do business and get a lot accomplished for his union and his comrades.

Very early in 1971 Frank Fitzsimmons said that he would run for president if Jimmy Hoffa did not make parole in March. This was a direct challenge to Jimmy Hoffa, because Hoffa had every right to run for president from the jailhouse. The crimes for which he had been convicted did not fit the list of the Landrum-Griffith Act of offenses that disqualified a convict from holding office for five years. As long as Hoffa held a union office of some kind at the time of the election he could run for president. While in jail Hoffa still held several union offices, including president of the International itself. After his announcement Fitzsimmons sought a conditional endorsement from the executive board at its January 1971 meeting in Palm Springs, California. Fitzsimmons wanted a vote of approval for his candidacy for president if Hoffa did not get his parole. The executive board refused to endorse Fitzsimmons even conditionally.