OKd ‘Ghosts’ to Protect Presser, FBI Men Swore

Two FBI agents who once directed Teamsters President Jackie Presser as a confidential informant have declared in sworn statements that they authorized him to keep mob-related “ghost employees” on his union payroll, fearing he would be killed if he did not.

The previously secret affidavits of Patrick J. Foran and Martin P. McCann Jr., which were provided to The Times Thursday by a source close to the case, show that the pair told investigators in June, 1985, that they feared Presser and a close associate, Anthony Hughes, might be murdered by organized crime figures if non-working employees with crime connections were removed from the Teamsters’ payroll.

FBI Pledged Secrecy

Foran disclosed also in his statement that Presser demanded and received a pledge of “total confidentiality” from top FBI officials 11 years ago in return for his secret assistance to the bureau in obtaining information about organized crime matters.

The statements of Foran and McCann are significant because the two are expected to be called by Presser as defense witnesses when the union chieftain goes on trial later this year on federal charges that he illegally siphoned $700,000 from his hometown Cleveland local to pay the salaries of the so-called ghosts.

Justice Department prosecutors have discounted the FBI statements as false, but neither agent has been charged with lying.

Agent Facing Trial

A third agent, Robert S. Friedrick, who had dealt with Presser since 1980, is facing trial on charges that he lied in making a similar claim that Presser had FBI authority to keep ghost workers on his payroll. Presser’s defense is expected to be based on the claim that he had such authority.

The Justice Department alleges that the agents were attempting to protect a valued informant from prosecution by another agency. The federal investigation of Presser was conducted by the Labor Department.

Foran, who is now assistant agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas office, and McCann, who has been retired for 10 years, have refused to comment to federal investigators or to reporters since giving their 1985 statements. Friedrick was fired from the FBI last August.

Foran, formerly a supervisor in the Cleveland FBI office, said in his affidavit that rival factions were warring for control of the Cleveland underworld in 1976 when Presser and his aide Hughes mentioned that crime figure Jack Nardi, who was on the Teamsters payroll, “was not doing his job and . . . they wanted to get rid of him.”

Underworld Leader Killed

But, Foran said, “I instructed Presser and Hughes not to get rid of Jack Nardi as it would cause problems with John Nardi,” Jack’s father, “and might result in endangering the lives of Presser and Hughes.” The elder Nardi headed one of the underworld factions. He was killed several months later when a bomb exploded in his car.

In describing events before the murder, Foran said that it was important to safeguard Presser and Hughes and keep them “in a position to obtain information of value to the FBI regarding criminal activities involving the union and the war in Cleveland.”

McCann, in his statement, confirmed Foran’s account, adding: “I advised Presser to keep Nardi on the rolls, as it was my opinion that if Nardi was fired things would blow up . . . .”

McCann explained that “I did not feel this was criminal conduct (on Presser’s part) as Nardi was supposed to work.”

Both agents said Nardi eventually was dismissed by Presser, with their approval, two years after his father’s death, when there was no further reason to retain him.

Foran and McCann said that they had also advised Presser to keep his uncle, Allen Friedman, on the payroll, even though Friedman had stopped working after two heart operations. Foran said that he felt Friedman was a good source of underworld information that Presser could pass on to the FBI. In addition, Friedman allegedly had crime connections, and “my desire to keep Presser and Hughes alive” added to his concern, Foran said.

Confidant of Presser

McCann said in his statement that he first developed Hughes, a former boxer who was a confidant and business associate of Presser, as an informant in the late 1960s, and through him cultivated Presser.

Neither agent disclosed any major cases that Presser helped the FBI to develop, except to say that Presser often told them about crimes being committed by other Teamster employees in Ohio, including, in one instance, his niece.

The niece, Cynthia Presser, was convicted in 1980 of embezzling union funds from Ohio Joint Teamsters Council 41 and was sent to prison.

Foran, who said he took over as Presser’s chief “handler” in 1977 when McCann retired, said that in December, 1976, or January, 1977, Presser insisted on receiving from the top levels of the bureau a guarantee of “complete and total confidentiality about his relationship with the FBI.”

A meeting in Chicago was arranged for Presser with then-Assistant FBI Director Frederick C. Fehl and Roy McKinnon, who was special agent in charge of the Cleveland FBI field office. The officials granted Presser’s request, “providing he was totally truthful,” Foran said.

The FBI’s willingness to meet Presser’s demand is a measure of the importance the organization attached to the information he could furnish. High-level involvement in an informant relationship is rare.

Labor Dept. Probe

Presser’s role with the FBI came to light only as a result of the Labor Department investigation.

Former FBI officials have said that the FBI believed it could “clean up” the scandal-plagued Teamsters through Presser, while gathering sensitive information on organized crime.

In the years before Presser’s election as national president in 1983, McCann said, agents encouraged Presser’s ambition for higher union office.

“I told him to go for it,” McCann related, “in that the higher up Presser went the better information he could obtain . . . .”

Prosecutors have said that Friedrick, the agent formally charged with lying to protect Presser, was indicted on the basis of inconsistencies between various statements he gave to investigators. Foran and McCann have refused to provide more than their initial statements.

Presser, if convicted, faces maximum punishment of 36 years imprisonment and $65,000 in fines.