U.S. May Keep Documents, Free Presser’s Uncle

The Justice Department indicated Friday that it may agree to free the convicted uncle of Teamsters Union President Jackie Presser as an outgrowth of its decision to abandon prosecution of Presser himself, The Times has learned.

At a closed-door hearing in Akron, Ohio, department attorneys told U.S. District Judge Sam Bell that they probably would drop fraud charges against the uncle, Allen Friedman, rather than turn over a “laundry list” of documents that Friedman says he needs for a new trial.

The documents, relating to Presser’s role as an FBI informant and to any promises of immunity that the government may have given him, are so sensitive that their public release could endanger lives, the department attorneys added.

“We said that if the judge grants a new trial for Friedman, we will seek dismissal of the charges against him,” Justice Department spokesman John K. Russell said in Washington.

Besides its impact on the Friedman case, the department’s position has implications for a congressional inquiry into the government’s handling of the Presser case. A Senate subcommittee is negotiating with the department and the FBI for access to many of the same documents.

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III has promised full cooperation in that inquiry.

Friedman has served 11 months of a three-year fraud sentence for having collected $165,000 from Presser’s Cleveland local while performing no work for it. He was to have been a prime witness if the government charged Presser with putting five “ghost employees,” including Friedman, on the union payroll.

FBI Permission

The Justice Department decided last month not to prosecute Presser after his lawyer argued that the FBI had given the union leader permission, as a government informant, to participate in the payroll-padding scheme as a means of maintaining contact with organized crime figures.

Friedman, 63, who was convicted two years ago, is now arguing that he deserves a new trial because prosecutors withheld information about Presser’s status. His lawyers hope to convince a jury that Friedman was entrapped by the government if FBI agents approved or encouraged Presser’s payments to him.

Sources said Friedman’s attorneys, Jack and Dennis P. Levin, presented Judge Bell and Justice Department attorneys with a “laundry list” of government documents that they would need for a new trial. The list, contained in a legal motion, asks for:

--”All items establishing that the U.S. government directly or indirectly and through Jackie Presser involved the defendant (Friedman) in a ghost employee scheme involving Cleveland Teamsters Local 507.”

--”A list of cases and investigations in which Jackie Presser has acted as a cooperating individual (with the FBI), either as an informant or in an undercover capacity, together with the location and identity of any criminal filings resulting from that cooperation.”

--Any statements made by Presser about his role to government agents and “any promises or representations made to Presser including . . . promises of no prosecution, immunity, lesser sentence or leniency of the Department of Justice, Department of Labor, FBI . . . or any other agency.”

A source present at the hearing in Bell’s chambers said department attorneys told the judge that if he ordered them to produce the materials, the government would have to refuse on grounds that the documents are too sensitive and confidential. Public release of the documents, they added, could even endanger some lives.

The Senate Governmental Affairs permanent investigations subcommittee, which is negotiating for access to much of the same material, hopes to conduct hearings next month into why high-level Justice Department officials rejected a recommendation that Presser be prosecuted in the payroll-padding scheme.

Presser has been President Reagan’s only political supporter among major labor leaders, but Administration officials have vehemently denied that politics played any role in the handling of his case.