Williams Admits That He Followed Orders of Mafia, Took Payments

Longtime Teamsters official Roy L. Williams admitted under oath Thursday that for years he followed instructions from the late Nick Civella, reputed Kansas City Mafia overlord, including voting for $97 million in pension fund loans to the Stardust casino in Las Vegas.

Shortly after the initial $62.8-million loan in 1974, Williams said, Civella began sending him $1,500 a month by courier. The payments continued until Williams asked them to halt when he became national president of the union in 1981.

The 70-year-old Williams, who is under a prison sentence in another case, made the disclosures during several hours on the stand in his new role as a cooperating witness for the government.

Civella’s Influence

Although he told of the late Civella’s influence over some of his former union superiors, Williams in his testimony did not implicate any of the nine reputed organized crime leaders accused in the present trial of conspiring to secretly control the Stardust casino through help of the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund.

Most of the persons he discussed in his testimony are dead, including Civella, two of Williams’ predecessors at the helm of the union--James R. Hoffa and Frank E. Fitzsimmons--and the late William Presser, a fellow Pension Fund trustee.

One whom Williams cast in an unfavorable light consistently was Allen M. Dorfman, Hoffa’s former consultant to the union’s pension fund. Dorfman was slain gangland-style shortly after he, Williams and reputed gangster Joseph Lombardo (a defendant in the present trial) were convicted three years ago of conspiring to bribe former Sen. Howard W. Cannon (D-Nev.) for help in defeating a trucking deregulation bill. Cannon was not charged.

A fresh insight into organized crime’s long-alleged influence with the Teamsters Union was provided by Williams in his portrait of Civella’s pervasive role.

Met Civella Monthly

“We tried to meet at least once a month,” Williams said of his sessions with Civella, who died of cancer in 1983 after being released early from a prison term.

Between meetings, Williams testified, Civella sent messages to him by Sam Ancona, who began as an agent under Williams at a big Kansas City local union and later was an international organizer who traveled with him continually.

Civella told him to deal only with Ancona and “instructed me not to take anything of value from any other person or group,” Williams testified.

Williams explained that he headed many union negotiations with employer groups and “they would bring suitcases of money in there to try to get 2 cents less an hour.”

Defendants Not Named

While not naming the defendants, he testified that Civella had told him that he had “talked with my (Civella’s) friends . . . my people” in Cleveland and Milwaukee about voting for the pension fund loans.

Judge Joseph E. Stevens Jr. has ruled that references to organized crime will not be permitted in the current trial.

Williams testified that Civella had told him to “follow the lead” of Presser, who headed the trustees’ committee that gave first approval on the loans. Civella said his “friends in Cleveland” had talked to Presser, who was from that city, and that Presser indicated to Williams that “he understood.”

It was not until later, he said, that he learned that the borrower on the Stardust loans, Argent Corp., was owned by Allen R. Glick, whom he had met earlier at dinner with Presser at La Costa, Calif. Williams said that Civella first “asked me if I’d go along on a couple of loans to the Stardust from the pension fund” and said “he had talked to my superiors and they were going along too.” At that time Fitzsimmons was president of the union, having succeeded Hoffa.

Williams Admits Lies

On cross-examination, which is to continue Monday, Williams conceded that he had lied in his own trial. He also said he had not told the truth in FBI interviews shortly after his conviction. He explained that he had “never cooperated with the FBI” in his 35 years in the union and that he was not cooperating then. He also said “I’ve been doing it (lying to federal agents) for many, many years.”

Although he testified he had no promise of a reduced sentence in return for his testimony, Williams, who has acute emphysema, said he hopes it will have that effect. He said that government doctors and two specialists “give me a 50% chance of living for three years.”