Word: hoffa
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Chicago. Balked in earlier attempts to move into Chicago, Hoffa got a foothold in the late 19403 through an alliance with Paul Dorfman, described by the McClellan committee as "a major figure in the Chicago underworld." Hoffa paid Dorfman off by handing fat Teamster insurance contracts to Dorfman's son. Through Dorfman, the committee charges, Hoffa got on good terms with such top Capone gang chieftains as Joseph Glimco and Paul ("The Waiter") Ricca. Glimco, with a record of 36 arrests, including two on murder charges, became a trustee of a Chicago Teamster local. In 1956, when Ricca...
Philadelphia. In 1956 Hoffa helped 18-arrests Racketeer Samuel ("Shorty") Feldman get a Philadelphia charter, Local 410, in the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union. By the time the union revoked the charter the next year. Local 410 had been thoroughly looted: though it had taken in about $20,000 during its short life, its assets totaled $450, its liabilities some $22,000. In gratitude for the opportunity for plunder, Feldman helped work out an alliance between Hoffa and Philadelphia Teamster Raymond Cohen, whose Local 107 had 19 officers with criminal records totaling 104 arrests and 40 convictions. Cohen stands accused...
Minneapolis. Fleeing an investigation of an attempted murder in Miami, Gerald Connelly found a haven as head of Teamster Local 548 in Minneapolis. When he got into trouble with the law there on charges of extortion and dynamiting, Teamster organizations under Hoffa's control paid out several thousand dollars for Connelly's lawyer fees...
...Detroit. Hoffa helped Herman Kierdorf get a parole from a prison term for armed robbery, hired him as a Teamster organizer. Hoffa also found a job as a Teamster business agent for Herman's ex-convict nephew Frank, who then set about shaking down small businessmen in Flint, Mich. He was fatally burned last year while setting fire to a Flint dry-cleaning establishment (asked by the McClellan committee to name some of the hoodlums he had got rid of since becoming Teamster president, Hoffa had the gall to list the late Frank Kierdorf). Other ex-convict business agents...
...what really accounts for whatever lingering esteem there may be for Jimmy Hoffa is' the image of him as a dedicated labor leader. Sure, the argument runs, Hoffa is tough, rough, and he pals with crooks; but at least it can be said for him that i) unlike Beck, he is not interested in making money for himself, and 2) unlike Beck, he is devoted to the interests of rank-and-file workers. The record, which Jimmy Hoffa says speaks for itself, explodes both of these notions as myths...