Agents Could Face Charges in Presser Inquiry

The FBI’s internal inquiry into how its agents handled Teamsters Union President Jackie Presser as a government informant is being treated as a full-scale criminal investigation into possible charges of obstruction of justice, The Times learned Wednesday.

Sources said investigators for the FBI’s internal watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility, are focusing on whether field agents were fully truthful earlier this year in describing their relationship with Presser to Justice Department officials.

Department officials, who decided after interviewing the agents that Presser’s informant status would not bar his indictment on union fraud charges, were caught by surprise in June when his attorney insisted that Presser had FBI permission to commit “ordinary crimes.”

The 11th-hour disclosure prompted the department to reject a federal strike force’s recommendation that Presser be indicted on charges of defrauding his hometown Cleveland local of more than $250,000 by authorizing payments to “ghost employees,” sources have said.

A source familiar with the FBI inquiry said the decision to conduct a criminal probe was designed in part to avoid any appearance of a cover-up.

Effect of Immunity

In conducting an internal inquiry, the FBI can proceed either administratively, which can lead to disciplinary action, or with a criminal investigation. Although agents can be compelled to testify in an administrative probe, officials said, that move has the effect of granting them immunity from criminal prosecution.

So far, the sources said, the FBI probe has not turned up any evidence of political influence in the field agents’ actions. A Senate subcommittee has launched a broader inquiry into whether political considerations influenced the Justice Department decision not to prosecute.

Presser’s lawyer, John R. Climaco, has denied that the labor leader provided information to the FBI, attributing the department’s decision to “basic innocence and good lawyering.” The FBI has refused comment on the matter.

‘Top Echelon’ Informant

The FBI’s inquiry has been complicated by Presser’s ranking as a “T.E.” informant--one judged able to penetrate the “top echelon” of organized crime, sources said. Controls on the files of such informants are more stringent than on those of standard informants.

Sources said one agent has testified that Presser did not receive specific permission to participate in the payroll-padding scheme. Instead, the agent maintains, he had been authorized to commit less-serious crimes as a means of strengthening his ties with alleged mobsters.

Presser told the FBI only after the fact that he was involved in the payroll-padding operation, the agent testified.

In conversations with Justice Department officials, the FBI had argued against prosecuting Presser, who allegedly has ties to major organized crime figures. They contended that the benefits of his “astonishing” cooperation outweighed those of prosecuting him.

Agency Turf War

Some members of the strike force, which formed by Labor Department investigators and not FBI agents, have contended that the FBI’s opposition to prosecuting Presser reflected a turf war between federal investigative agencies more than Presser’s value as a source.

After Climaco made his successful last-minute appeal to top-level officials in the Justice Department’s criminal division, the department’s organized crime and racketeering section unearthed additional details of the FBI’s ties to Presser.

Some department officials now contend that those details conflict with information originally provided by the FBI field agents.

The inquiry so far is focusing on past and present officials of the FBI’s Cleveland field office, who reportedly dealt with Presser on a regular basis.

Sworn Statements

Among those who have submitted sworn statements to FBI investigators, or have answered their questions, are Joseph Griffin, special agent in charge of the office; Robert Frederick, supervisor of its organized crime squad; Patrick J. Foran, a predecessor of Frederick’s and now assistant special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office, and Martin P. McCann Jr., a retired agent now working for LTV Steel Co. in Cleveland, according to sources familiar with the probe.

All of the men either declined comment or did not return messages left by The Times.

In a related development, it was learned Wednesday that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) has obtained Labor Department records on the Presser investigation. Although a Thurmond spokesman described the action as “routine,” it lends support to an earlier request by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the committee’s ranking Democrat, for Justice Department information on the case.

The Senate Governmental Affairs permanent investigations subcommittee last month began conducting an investigation of the Presser case. Administration sources said that discussions with the committee about access to material in the case are approaching an impasse because of the FBI’s unwillingness to acknowledge in any way Presser’s informant status.

Ronald J. Ostrow reported from Washington and Robert L. Jackson from Cleveland.