Charles Brandt - I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank The Irishman Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa

Contents

To my wife,
N ANCY P OOLE B RANDT,
to my mother,
C AROLINA D I M ARCO B RANDT,
and to my fathers 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. Thompsonfirst to publish both Stephen King and John Grishamwho 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 Hoffas 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 Jimmys 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 Hoffaa 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 TVs 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. Hoffas son, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, had just had his hopes raised by a new development in his fathers 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 Newss 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 didnt 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 Sheeran 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, Jimmys 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 fathers disappearance. Do the right thing, she said to him. Following his attorneys advice, Sheeran revealed nothing and respectfully referred Barbara to his counsel.

This wasnt 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 familyeven under a vow of secrecyis painful to me. I believe you are one of those people.

On October 25, 2001, a week after Barbaras 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.