In 1966, Bill Presser gave his son Jackie a charter to form a new Teamsters local in Cleveland. Presser organized 12 workers at a local paint company and established Local 507. Presser hired a number of organizers, and Local 507 quickly organized 6,000 workers in dozens of plants and warehouses in the Cleveland area -— making Local 507 the largest Teamster local in the metropolitan area.

Bill and Jackie Presser soon were some of the most powerful men in the Teamsters union. By 1972, the father-son combination led the Ohio Conference of Teamsters. Jackie Presser quickly helped make the Ohio Conference a model within the Teamsters for providing social services, engaging in union-member communications, and undertaking effective political activity. Both Pressers were also trustees of the Teamster's Central States Pension Fund, one of the richest and most influential pension plans in the nation.

Jackie Presser was elected an international vice president of the Teamsters in 1976. His father, Bill Presser, was forced to resign his vice presidency after he was convicted of extortion and obstruction of justice. According to court testimony, Bill Presser and the Cleveland mob agreed to nominate Jackie as Bill Presser's successor. Bill Presser met with Roy Lee Williams, then president of the Central Conference of Teamsters -— a regional council which controlled union locals in 14 Midwestern states (including Ohio). Williams, who was working with the Kansas City crime family, agreed to help Presser convince Teamster President Fitzsimmons to make Jackie a vice president. Jackie Presser's subsequent election was unanimous.

As an international vice president, Presser urged the Teamsters to root out corruption and pushed for a massive public relations campaign to improve the union's image. In 1977, the Teamsters built a large public relations operation at its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

But that same year Presser, along with Fitzsimmons and 17 other Teamster leaders, was forced to resign as a trustee of the Central States Pension Fund. The Department of Justice had charged Presser and others with making improper loans to mob-controlled Las Vegas casinos, racetracks and real estate investments. In 1978, Presser was named a defendant in a civil suit brought by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), which sought damages and reimbursement on behalf of union retirees.

By 1979, Presser was making $231,676 a year. He drew a salary as both secretary-treasurer of Local 507 and as an international vice president of the union.

Becoming an FBI informant

Jackie Presser, along with his father and Teamsters President Frank Fitzsimmons, became informers for the federal government in 1972. Bill Presser had been indicted by the federal government on bribery, embezzlement and other charges. Jimmy Hoffa, meanwhile, had been released from federal prison and was seeking to regain the presidency of the Teamsters. The three men offered the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) incriminating evidence about Hoffa and other rivals in the Teamsters union. The Pressers agreed to supply their evidence if the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) would drop its indictment against the senior Presser. Unbeknownst to Fitzsimmons, the Pressers told the IRS that they had evidence of illegal activities by Fitzsimmons as well.

The IRS was not receptive to the offers, and DOJ refused to drop its indictment of Bill Presser (some charges were eventually dropped, and Bill Presser was found innocent of others). Angry at the government's refusal, Fitzsimmons allegedly contacted White House chief counsel Charles Colson (who was the Nixon administration's liaison to labor groups) and sought a meeting with President Richard Nixon. Embarrassed, IRS and FBI agents subsequently interviewed Jackie Presser in late 1972. Presser's information was verified, and Presser spent the rest of his life as an FBI informer.

Presser began receiving $2,500 a month (roughly $12,500 in 2007 dollars) from the FBI for providing information. Presser was considered a "top-echelon informant," marking him as one of the Bureau's most prized sources.

Shortly thereafter, Presser allegedly received permission from two FBI agents to pad the Local 507 payroll with fake employees. The individuals hired as "ghost employees" were not required to do any work but nevertheless received substantial paychecks. The paychecks, it was later claimed, were a way of funneling payments to Teamsters officials and members of the Cleveland mob.

Involvement with the mafia

According to court records, in 1974 Jackie Presser became deeply involved in mafia affairs. He allegedly told the leaders of the Chicago mafia that he was willing to do them favors in exchange for money and assistance. Jimmy "The Weasel" Fratianno, a former hitman in the Cleveland crime family and later acting head of the Los Angeles crime family, later testified that Chicago crime boss Joseph Aiuppa told him in 1974 that "if you need anything from Jackie Presser, he said he'll do it for you." Fratianno also testified that he colluded with Presser to set up a union dental program whose profits were skimmed into Presser's and the Mafia's bank accounts.

Organizationally, however, Presser was under the control of the Cleveland crime family.

Presser's involvement with organized crime eventually led to fears for his safety. In 1976, a battle for control inside the Cleveland mafia broke out. Longtime Cleveland mob boss John T. Scalish died without naming a successor. John Nardi, a high-ranking Teamster leader, formed a coalition with mobster Danny Greene to seize control of the Cleveland crime family. They were opposed by Scalish lieutenant James "Blackie" Licavoli. Eventually Nardi and Greene were murdered by Licavoli, along with several other Teamsters officials. Presser feared he was next. The FBI gave Presser a small radio transmitter that supposedly could detonate a car bomb from a distance. Presser also hired a large contingent of muscular bodyguards who accompanied him everywhere he went (including Teamster meetings). Despite being armed with the radio device and surrounded by guards, Presser fled to Florida and moved from hotel to hotel every few days until the gang war ended.

In 1977, Presser allegedly used his mob connections to seek political favors from President Jimmy Carter. According to Fratianno's court testimony, Presser asked Fratianno to locate someone who could persuade Carter to put pressure on DOJ, DOL and the FBI in criminal investigations or to secure pardons for Presser associates. Fratianno claimed that William Marchiondo, an Albuquerque lawyer, later met with Presser. Marchiondo was an associate of former New Mexico Governor Jerry Apodaca, and Fratianno believed that Marchiondo and Apodaca felt they had Carter's ear because they had supported the president's candidacy early in the 1976 primary season.

Reagan transition controversy

In 1980, Ronald Reagan forged a close political relationship with Jackie Presser. During Reagan's 1980 campaign for president, Jackie Presser served as one of Reagan's hosts at a private luncheon for Teamster and other union leaders and escorted Reagan to private meetings with Teamster officials. After the November 1980 presidential election, Reagan named Presser as a labor advisor to his transition team.

The media soon reported that Presser was reputed to have links to organized crime and that he was the object of a DOL civil suit for financial malfeasance. Reagan and his advisors claimed to have been unaware of the accusations, and Presser denied having any ties to organized crime. Just days after the story broke in the national press, however, New Jersey State Police witnesses testified that Presser was the primary contact for the DeCavalcante crime family of New Jersey and the Patriarca crime family of Boston whenever crime figures needed loans from Teamster pension funds. The courtroom testimony intensified the pressure on the Reagan transition team.

Democrats and leaders of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), a Teamster reform group, demanded that Reagan remove Presser from the transition team. But Reagan aides said that the transition team had completed its task and the issue was now moot.

Second Reagan endorsement

The Teamsters had endorsed Ronald Reagan for president in 1980, creating a furor within the American labor movement. However, AFL-CIO officials expressed hope that the Teamsters would endorse the Democratic candidate in 1984. This hope proved wrong.

Presser announced on June 7, 1983, that he intended to endorse Reagan for re-election. A formal endorsement did not come in January 1984 as expected, and Presser strongly criticized the AFL-CIO for endorsing Democratic candidate Walter Mondale too early in the primary cycle.

Worried Republicans waited throughout the spring and summer for a Teamster endorsement, but it was not forthcoming. In early August, Presser finally told White House aides that Teamster support for Reagan hinged on whether Reagan would remove Donald Dotson as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. The Dotson-led labor board had issued a string of decisions which the Teamsters considered anti-labor. On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Presser told the press that Dotson's removal was a "do-or-die situation" for the Teamsters—which held more NLRB-supervised organizing elections than any other union. Reagan refused to fire Dotson, although presidential aides said that a compromise would be reached over the NLRB's actions.

Just a week later, the Teamsters endorsed Reagan. Vice President George H. W. Bush accepted the endorsement in person. The Teamster endorsement was the only large labor union endorsement Reagan received. In apparent gratitude, Reagan named Presser to the second Reagan transition team as a labor advisor.

First official confirmation as government informant

Although turncoat mob leaders and others had long accused Jackie Presser of being a government informant, the first official confirmation did not come until August 22, 1981. In its August 31 issue, Time magazine reported that Fitzsimmons, Bill Presser and Jackie Presser had all served as government informants in the early 1970s to avoid possible prosecution. The information was revealed in declassified reports filed by IRS agents. Presser confirmed that he, his father and Fitzsimmons had met with federal agents, but declared that there had been only one meeting in 1972.

Days later, the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper reported that court documents and unidentified law enforcement officials had confirmed that Presser and his father had served as government informants while taking $300,000 in kickbacks from a Las Vegas public relations firm connected to organized crime. Presser categorically denied the report.

Soon after, however, editors at the Plain Dealer retracted the story despite protests from reporters. The mafia had long doubted claims that Presser was an informant, and the retraction helped renew mob confidence in Presser. The mob's confidence in Presser was reaffirmed a year later when the Justice Department publicly ended its investigation into the alleged kickback scheme.

In February 1983, Presser was re-elected to the international union's policy committe.

Just two months later, Roy Williams was convicted for conspiring to bribe U.S. Senator Howard Cannon. Williams announced he would resign as Teamsters president while appealing his conviction.

Williams' conviction was no surprise to Presser. Beginning in 1979, Presser began providing the Justice Department with extensive information on Williams. It was Presser who had turned over the critical evidence which showed Williams had arranged to give Sen. Cannon a parcel of land as a bribe to defeat trucking deregulation legislation.

Commission on Organized Crime

In early 1985, the President's Commission on Organized Crime issued a sealed subpoena ordering Presser to testify about mafia influence in the Teamsters union. Presser filed suit to have the subpoena thrown out. In March, a federal court refused to bar the subpoena.

The Commission held its April 1985 hearings in Chicago, and focused those sessions on organized crime involvement in labor unions. During the hearings, Commission members charged that the mafia controlled the Teamsters, the Laborers, HERE and the International Longshoremen's Association. Former mobsters described numerous syndicate cash bribes and other payments to Presser. Other witnesses testified that Presser had given his approval to the Brotherhood of Loyal Americans and Strong Teamsters (BLAST), a group set up to intimidate TDU members. Testimony before the panel indicated that Presser ordered BLAST members—including regional and local Teamster leaders and staff—to disrupt TDU meetings during the 1983 Teamster national convention. BLAST members drove speakers from podiums, tore down banners, seized and threw away literature, beat TDU members and ejected them from the convention hall. "We should be doing more of that. I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to let up on these people," one witness quoted Presser.

During his own testimony, Presser invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 15 times.

Presser's silence angered the Commission's members. In October 1985, the Commission renewed its efforts to question Presser after it was revealed that the Department of Justice had decided not to prosecute him for padding the payroll at Local 507.

In the fall of 1985, the Commission heard testimony from former Teamsters president Roy Williams about Presser's connections to organized crime. Under a grant of immunity, Williams testified extensively about Presser's offer to fix a 1974 criminal case for $10,000 and his desire to obtain kickbacks for helping to arrange a 1975 Teamsters pension fund loan to organized crime figures so they could purchase a Las Vegas casino.

In March 1986, the Commission released a preliminary report on organized crime influence in the Teamsters. The Commission found corruption "so pervasive" that it recommended that the federal government seek court supervision of the union. Department of Justice lawyers immediately began preparing a civil lawsuit to place the Teamsters under federal control.

Presser vigorously opposed the Justice Department's efforts. He planned a five-year legal, public relations, legislative and political counter-attack to keep the Teamsters free from court supervision, and sought and won AFL-CIO support for his proposals. He also led a massive lobbying effort in the Congress to oppose the takeover on cost and libertarian philosophical grounds designed to appeal to Republicans.

In May 1988, federal prosecutors cut back their effort to take over the Teamsters after losing a criminal trial against Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno. Salerno and others had been accused of labor racketeering and controlling the election of Roy Williams and Jackie Presser as Teamsters president. The failure to convict Salerno led prosecutors to believe that their case against the union might be weaker than they thought. Nevertheless, an immediate trusteeship was sought to eliminate mob influence in the union.^[91]

Final indictment and death

Main article: Jackie Presser indictment scandal

 

The Jackie Presser indictment scandal was a legal and political scandal which began on June 1, 1984. The scandal erupted after attorneys with the United States Department of Justice initiated a prosecution of Teamsters President Jackie Presser on various charges, including fraud and labor racketeering, only to cease prosecution once it was revealed that Presser had been a criminal informant for the FBI since the early 1970s. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials came under intense political pressure to resume prosecution, while Presser's attorneys claimed that Presser had permission from DOJ to engage in the alleged crimes in order to mislead organized crime figures. It was later revealed that FBI and DOJ officials may not have kept investigators in other federal agencies and Congress fully informed of Presser's role, and that FBI agents may have overstepped their authority in giving Presser permission to commit crimes. The scandal largely ended after Presser's death on July 9, 1988.

The 1981 investigation into Presser's payroll-padding at Local 507 finally led to a decision by the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute Presser in June 1984. Five days later, the Los Angeles Times named Presser as a U.S. government criminal informant. The report quoted unnamed FBI sources, making this the first time that government officials had confirmed the unverified accusations of mob informants and other reports.

But nearly a year passed before any prosecutorial action was taken. During this time, the Justice Department debated whether to protect Presser as a source or prosecute him. Finally, on May 16, 1985, top Justice Department officials ordered federal attorneys to drop their prosecution of Presser over concerns that his extensive cooperation with the government would be revealed.

Outraged members of Congress demanded an investigation into the handling of the politically sensitive case. Over the next year, Senate investigators learned that FBI field agents had not kept FBI officials fully informed of their actions, that FBI field agents may have improperly approved illegal actions, and that FBI officials did not keep DOJ and DOL officials fully informed of their relationship with Presser.

Presser's attorneys claimed that the FBI had given him permission to initiate and maintain the payroll-padding scheme as a means of shielding him from mob suspicions. Such permission, which is permitted under FBI and DOJ rules and federal law, should bar prosecution, Presser's lawyers argued.

Federal grand juries in Cleveland and Washington, D.C., soon opened investigations into the FBI's handling of the Presser case as well as whether the promises made by FBI agents had been authorized. Justice Department leaders eventually undertook a prosecution of one of the FBI field agents who handled Presser, claiming that he had not been authorized to give Presser permission to engage in the payroll-padding scheme.

In May 1986, federal prosecutors again indicted Jackie Presser for fraud.

Presser's declining health caused numerous delays in his trial. He had surgery to remove two cancerous tumors in January 1987. His cancer returned in June 1987, and he spent several months undergoing chemotherapy and recuperating. He underwent surgery again in the fall of 1987 to remove another cancerous tumor. He suffered additional heart and pituitary gland problems throughout the winter and spring of 1988.

On May 4, 1988, Jackie Presser told the Teamsters executive board that he was taking a four-month leave of absence due to his health problems. Weldon Mathis was named the union's acting president.

Presser was diagnosed with a brain tumor 10 days later, and underwent surgery to have the tumor removed. Presser went home, but was re-admitted to the hospital on June 27 suffering from cardiac problems, a blood clot in his lung and pituitary gland dysfunction.

Jackie Presser died in Cleveland on the evening of Saturday, July 9, 1988. He was three weeks shy of his 62nd birthday. The proximate cause of death was cardiac arrest, a complication of his cancer and ongoing cardiac problems.

Hours after Presser's funeral on July 12, Teamster leaders met a nearby restaurant and agreed to support William J. McCarthy as his successor.