Justice Dept. Opposes Giving Ex-Teamster Leader Probation

The Justice Department on Tuesday labeled as “absurd” former Teamsters President Roy L. Williams’ request to reduce his pending 10-year prison sentence to probation but said he “is worthy of some consideration” for his recent testimony linking the powerful union and organized crime figures.

In a document filed in U.S. District Court here, a government prosecutor said that “Williams’ cooperation to date at best justifies some symbolic reduction in his sentence.”

Williams, 70 and ailing, was convicted three years ago of conspiring to bribe a U.S. senator. He is scheduled to appear in District Court here Monday for a hearing on his request to have his sentence reduced because of his health and his cooperation with the government in recent months.

Suffers From Emphysema

District Judge Prentice Marshall has warned Williams, who suffers from severe emphysema, to be prepared to enter prison immediately after that hearing.

Earlier this month, Williams completed testifying in a continuing Kansas City trial of nine reputed organized crime leaders from Chicago, Kansas City, Cleveland and Milwaukee. They are accused of conspiring to control and skim money from Las Vegas casinos.

In the document, special U.S. Atty. Gary S. Shapiro said that “while Williams’ testimony . . . could not fail to have impacted on the (jury in that trial) in a significant way,” most of the testimony paralleled evidence the government already had.

Shapiro also said that most of Williams’ testimony was limited to his relationship with three deceased persons. They were Nick Civella, the reputed Kansas City Mafia overlord, former Teamsters pension official William Presser and Allen Dorfman, a millionaire financier and Teamsters consultant who was shot fatally in a suburban Chicago parking lot shortly after being convicted with Williams in the bribery conspiracy.

‘Limited Information’

“If . . . it is Williams’ view that the somewhat limited information he provided sufficiently counter-balances the crimes for which he stands convicted and should result in the complete elimination of his prison term, the United States strongly disagrees with that evaluation of the worth of his testimony,” Shapiro said.

During the last three weeks Justice Department prosecutors have been debriefing Williams, a process that Shapiro called “slow and agonizing.”

So far none of the additional information being provided by Williams “can currently form the basis of a criminal prosecution or . . . possesses any significant evidentiary value,” Shapiro said in the document.

He called Williams’ testimony so far “a limited step in cooperating with the United States in its investigations of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and organized crime.”