Senate Study Set Friday in Presser Case

Despite Justice Department warnings that criminal charges may be imminent in the politically charged probe of Teamsters Union President Jackie Presser and others, Senate investigators will open hearings Friday on the FBI’s handling of the controversial case.

The hearings, announced Monday by the Senate Governmental Affairs permanent investigations subcommittee, originally were opposed by Justice Department officials who say they are nearing completion of two grand jury investigations. The sessions will mark the first time that sworn testimony is taken publicly on the department’s decision not to seek charges against Presser, as recommended by a federal organized-crime strike force in Cleveland.

Opening witnesses will include Jack Nardi, who pleaded guilty to receiving $109,800 in “ghost employee” pay engineered by Presser but was set free last October when the Justice Department asked that the case be dropped rather than disclose details of Presser’s alleged role as an FBI informant.

Union Convention Near

The hearing, to be chaired by Sen. William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.), will take place just 10 days before the opening of the Teamsters’ national convention in Las Vegas, where Presser is expected to be reelected to a five-year term.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Stephen S. Trott, who heads the Justice Department’s criminal division, also is scheduled to testify Friday--an arrangement that signals resolution of a battle with the subcommittee over the timing of the public session.

Trott and Deputy Atty. Gen. D. Lowell Jensen, department sources said, had opposed conducting the hearings while two grand jury investigations of Presser were pending. But, after subcommittee officials outlined the scope of the first day of hearings and said it would not jeopardize the current investigations, Trott apparently agreed to appear and present the Justice Department’s side of the story.

A federal grand jury in Cleveland is hearing testimony this week and will decide whether to revive the proposed labor-fraud charges against Presser on grounds that he did not have FBI authorization to make the illegal payments to “ghost employees”--people who did not perform any work for the union yet remained on its payroll.

False Statements Blamed

An internal Justice Department investigation into why indictment of Presser was blocked has concluded that officials who made the decision were misled by what are now considered false statements that FBI agents made about their dealings with Presser as an informant, according to several sources familiar with the case.

In Washington, another federal grand jury is investigating whether one or more FBI agents made false statements or conspired to obstruct justice by telling department attorneys that Presser had been sanctioned to make the otherwise illegal “ghost employee” payments as a way of enhancing his credibility with mobsters.

The case is particularly sensitive for its political considerations, because Presser has been President Reagan’s sole supporter among the major labor leaders. FBI Director William H. Webster and other officials, however, have said that they are satisfied that politics played no part in the handling of the case.

Nardi, 44, the son of a Teamsters local official who was killed in a Cleveland gang-style bombing in 1977, is expected to testify about his years as a “ghost employee” on the payroll of Cleveland Local 507, of which Presser is still secretary-treasurer.

Nardi told reporters after a brief court appearance last October that Presser “put me on the payroll” in 1972 because “I think (he) wanted to maintain a good relationship with my father.”

A few months after his father’s death, however, Nardi said: “I got a phone call that my services were no longer needed by (Local) 507. . . . I was supposed to be a business agent and union organizer, but they never called me to do any work.”

Nardi said that he had collected $109,800 in union pay over six years, although he performed no work for Presser’s local.

Last fall, after Nardi protested that he lacked knowledge of Presser’s FBI-informant role when he pleaded guilty in 1983 to having been a ghost employee, the Justice Department asked a court to vacate his conviction rather than give him a new trial. Justice Department attorneys said they were unwilling to supply Presser-related documents for a retrial of Nardi, because to do so might breach the secrecy of the FBI’s informant program.

Nardi’s lawyer told The Times late last month that he was concerned about his client’s safety because Nardi had been missing for a time, but Senate investigators say that Nardi has been located and will testify.