U.S. Vows to Disprove Presser on ‘Ghost’ Workers

The federal prosecutors who will bring Teamsters Union President Jackie Presser to trial this summer said Thursday they will expose as “an utter fabrication” his contention that FBI agents authorized his conduct.

In papers filed in federal court here, the prosecutors vowed they would prove to jurors that Presser never had FBI authorization to put Mafia-related “ghost employees” on the payroll of his hometown Teamsters Local 507, an act that allegedly cost the union treasury $700,000.

Justice Department prosecutors Stephen H. Jigger and Bernard A. Smith did not disclose the nature of their proof in their filing. Their papers were in response to a motion last week by John R. Climaco, the Teamsters general counsel, who is Presser’s defense attorney.

‘Directed and Authorized’

Climaco, in asking a federal judge to dismiss the indictment of Presser, said the Teamsters leader had been “directed and authorized” by Cleveland FBI agents to retain the non-working “ghosts” to keep his channels of information to the Mafia open and to ensure his personal safety.

Presser served as a secret informant for the FBI on organized crime matters from about 1973 to 1983. In the late 1970s, warring mob factions in Cleveland were seeking control of the organized crime apparatus.

Climaco’s motion was supported by sworn affidavits from FBI agents Martin P. McCann and Patrick Foran, who told Justice Department investigators in 1985 that they had personally advised Presser to retain the non-working union employees.

The affidavits of McCann and Foran helped convince Justice Department officials that year to postpone indicting Presser, on grounds he may have lacked criminal intent. But Presser’s indictment was issued in 1986 after department officials, on the basis of an internal investigation, concluded they had been misled.

Prosecutors said in their latest court filing that Climaco, Presser’s attorney, had played a questionable role “in this pattern of deception” and “should be embarrassed.”

Climaco Role Weighed

A federal grand jury two years ago considered whether Climaco was part of a conspiracy to obstruct justice but never returned any charges against him.

The prosecutors noted Thursday that Climaco “had several clandestine meetings” in 1985 with a third FBI agent, Robert S. Friedrick, “to plot defense strategy before Climaco traveled to Washington D.C., to present the bogus ‘authorization’ defense to Department of Justice officials.”

On May 16, 1986, when Presser’s indictment was returned, a sealed indictment alleging Friedrick had lied under oath also was announced. It was based on statements by Friedrick that he had originally lied to investigators when he claimed he had first-hand knowledge about the FBI’s authorization of Presser’s conduct.

Last week, however, a federal appellate court in Washington upheld a lower court decision to block Friedrick’s prosecution because Justice Department lawyers had unfairly tricked him into making his damaging admissions.

‘Tangled Web of Deception’

But prosecutors Jigger and Smith noted in their court filing that the appellate court nonetheless said the Justice Department had uncovered “a tangled web of deception” among the FBI agents.

If Presser was authorized by FBI agents to pay non-working union employees, he would be “divested of criminal intent” and should not be prosecuted, the prosecutors acknowledged.

But a trial jury must decide that question, they said, rather than having the case halted at this time by a federal judge.