Agent Admitted Lie, FBI Official Testifies
A former FBI supervisor who dealt with Teamsters President Jackie Presser has admitted that he and other bureau agents never authorized the labor leader to put “ghost employees” who did no work on the union payroll, the FBI’s chief polygraph expert testified Tuesday.
Paul J. Minor, the FBI expert, told a federal court hearing here that former supervisor Robert S. Friedrick expressed regret last January for having concocted a false “authorization story” in a vain attempt to prevent Presser, a long-time bureau informant, from being indicted on labor fraud and racketeering charges. Friedrick admitted the false story after failing a lie-detector test earlier this year, Minor said.
Agent Has Been Fired
Presser and Friedrick were indicted in May after Justice Department investigators decided that sworn statements made by Friedrick a year ago were false when he claimed that the FBI had given the Teamsters president permission to hire the mob-related ghost workers. Friedrick has since been fired by FBI Director William H. Webster.
Minor’s testimony was not the first indication that Friedrick had made false statements. In fact, in a transcript of a Jan. 9 interrogation released last month, Friedrick himself said, “It’s true. I lied,” about authorizing Presser to commit criminal acts. However, Minor’s remarks added to the mounting evidence against Friedrick, who faces trial Jan. 12 in Washington on charges involving false statements.
Minor testified at a federal court hearing called by U.S. District Judge George H. Revercomb to determine if sufficient evidence exists to proceed with Friedrick’s trial. The trial of Presser and two associates on labor racketeering charges in Cleveland will not begin until spring or summer.
Friedrick’s defense attorneys are seeking dismissal of his indictment on grounds that federal prosecutors tricked him into making self-incriminating statements and sought to deny him effective legal representation.
FBI Informants
Another witness at the hearing, Justice Department attorney Richard M. Rogers, acknowledged publicly for the first time that Presser and one of his indicted associates, Anthony Hughes, had been confidential informants for the FBI.
Rogers’ brief testimony on this point followed the filing of court papers in Cleveland by attorneys for Presser and Hughes stating that “their relationships with various government employees and agents over the years” had led to authorization by FBI agents of the acts for which they were indicted.
Rogers did not elaborate on the pair’s informant duties, although other sources have said that the two secretly helped the FBI on organized-crime cases for at least 10 years. Besides serving as Teamsters president since 1983, Presser for many years has been secretary-treasurer of his hometown Cleveland union local and Hughes has been its recording secretary.
Minor testified that Friedrick “recanted” his earlier story about the FBI authorizing Presser’s actions when Friedrick failed a lie-detector test that Minor administered earlier this year. Minor said a key question that Friedrick answered incorrectly was: “Did you ever discuss with Martin McCann and Pat Foran (agents who handled the Presser case before Friedrick) the falsification of information?”
Polygraph Revealed Lie
Friedrick replied, “No,” Minor testified, but the polygraph showed that he was lying.
After being informed that he had failed the test, Minor said Friedrick told him that “he had no knowledge whatsoever that the FBI had authorized hiring ghost employees.”
He said Friedrick added that “he had gotten too close to Jackie Presser, that he was sorry for what he had done and sorry he had not lived up to his responsibilities.”
The authorization question is crucial because Presser and Hughes are expected to defend themselves at their trial by arguing that Friedrick, Foran and McCann told the union officials that they could hire so-called ghost employees to maintain lines of communication with mobsters the FBI wanted to keep watch over.