Teamster Officers’ Trial Defense: Presser Did It

CLEVELAND — Two associates of Jackie Presser, the late president of the Teamsters Union, served notice Monday that they will defend themselves against labor racketeering and embezzlement charges by laying the blame for any misdeeds at the feet of their deceased colleague.

In opening statements at the federal court trial of Harold Friedman, an international vice president of the Teamsters, and Anthony Hughes, recording secretary of Presser’s hometown union, Friedman’s attorney, Paul J. Cambria Jr., told jurors:

“The crime here is that Presser died and he’s not here to talk.”

Presser, Friedman and Hughes were accused by a federal grand jury two years ago of having wasted $700,000 in union funds by paying salaries to non-working “ghost employees,” most of whom had underworld connections.

Presser had obtained repeated delays in the trial because of failing health. He died of cancer in July.

Cambria told the court that Presser, as secretary-treasurer of Cleveland Teamsters Local 507, made decisions by himself on whom to hire and fire. The attorney noted that Presser began contending last year that, as a secret informant for the FBI on organized crime matters for 11 years, he had been encouraged by FBI agents to keep those employees on the payroll.

Friedman, as president of Local 507, “had no reason to put anyone on the payroll and not have them work,” Cambria said. “No one gave him a dime of this money.”

Traveled With Presser

Hughes’ attorney, Elmer Guiliani, also stressed that Presser had made all the decisions. He said that Hughes, who stands accused of doing little for his pay, traveled extensively with Presser and performed many duties for which he was given no public credit.

However, prosecutor Stephen Jigger told the jury that Friedman and Hughes had plotted with Presser and “breached their fiduciary duty to use union money solely for the members’ benefit.” He said that Hughes had been paid a Teamster salary while he worked at a Cleveland restaurant partly owned by Presser’s wife.

Besides Hughes, other alleged “ghost employees” are Allen Friedman, Presser’s uncle; George Argie, a convicted gambler, and Jack Nardi, the son of a powerful underworld figure, Jigger said.

Jigger charged that Presser and Hughes “actively participated” with three FBI agents in a scheme to help the union officers escape Labor Department charges by having the agents claim that they had authorized Presser to hire the ghost workers. Jigger said that one of the agents, Robert S. Friedrick, “ultimately admitted he had lied.”

Another agent, Patrick Foran, now the No. 2 official in the FBI’s Las Vegas field office, has informed attorneys that he will refuse to testify at the trial, citing his Fifth Amendment protection.