The Irishman Didn’t Kill Jimmy Hoffa

Martin Scorsese’s new gangster film epic, “The Irishman” would seem to be a slam-dunk winner.

It has an all-star cast, featuring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci. It showcases state-of-the-art special effects which have “de-aged” De Niro and Pacino. And Scorsese is widely regarded as one of the best directors in Hollywood.

But the film has one big problem. The film story line is not true.

The motion picture is based on the 2004 book “I Heard You Paint Houses” by attorney Charles Brandt. It’s a book about the late Frank Sheeran—The Irishman—who claims he killed a lot of people, including Jimmy Hoffa.

Sheeran would have us believe Mafia dons preferred him as their hitman instead of so-called “made” members of their respective mob families who had sworn omerta, or a code of silence.

This much is true: Sheeran was a Teamster thug. He was a close associate of Jimmy Hoffa who often mingled with Mafia gangsters. And he was a liar, too.

Through his self-promoting tale, Sheeran scammed Hollywood luminaries. It’s ironic. These are men who have made careers based on films about underworld hustlers who live off scams and who lie for a living.

Yet, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese were duped in to making a big-budget, overly-long epic film based on an untrue story.

The Irishman, did not kill Jimmy Hoffa.

For one thing, the FBI case agent on the Hoffa investigation told me he has no indication Sheeran was there that day.

For movie fans who are tired of Hollywood’s not-true “true story” films, I’m going to explain why the story of “The Irishman” doesn’t hold up.

I know quite a bit about the Hoffa disappearance. I was a crime beat reporter when I broke the Hoffa story on WXYZ-TV, Detroit on July 31^st, 1975.

The Hoffa case was my only assignment for months afterward. The story was headline news from coast to coast.

A little over a month after Hoffa disappeared a Detroit News sketch artist showed up at the federal grand jury that was investigating the case. In one sketch, artist William Amenda showed Leonard Schultz, a belligerent Detroit labor racketeer, loudly calling me an irresponsible reporter.

Hoffa’s History

Here is the Jimmy Hoffa story in a nutshell—a very BIG nutshell.

Born in Indiana, Hoffa got involved in unionizing as a young man. It became his life’s passion and driving force. Hoffa rose to become the Teamsters Union president.

Hoffa eventually went to prison for jury tampering and labor law violations.

In 1974, the union leader relinquished the Presidency of the Teamsters as a condition of a Presidential pardon from Richard Nixon, and he had to stay out of union politics until 1980.

Frank Fitzsimmons took control of the union. Hoffa saw his restricted pardon as Nixon’s gift to Fitzsimmons for the union’s endorsement of Nixon’s re-election.

The mob did not want Hoffa to return to the Teamsters presidency. Their gravy train under Fitzsimmons might be at risk.

In prison Hoffa became embroiled in a bitter feud with fellow Teamster and high-ranking New Jersey Mafia leader Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano.

The Mafia’s top leaders decided Hoffa had to be stopped. He was relentless in his drive to lead the Teamsters Union again. Hoffa’s feud with Provenzano was selected as the pretext to lure Hoffa to a so-called “peace meeting” with Provenzano.

Hoffa was reluctant but finally agreed to meet with Provenzano. He didn’t want any obstacle to his return to the union presidency. A “peace meet” was brokered by the late Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone, a feared Detroit Mafia enforcer.

Hoffa let his family know he would attend the meeting the afternoon he disappeared.

He called his wife and angrily said he was waiting in the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant. Hoffa has never been seen or heard from since.

When Hoffa disappeared, the police immediately feared the worst. Hoffa was a devoted family man, not prone to vanishing.

The FBI was slow to get on the case because Jay Bailey, the local agent-in-charge,

was from the J. Edgar Hoover school of federal law enforcement, which emphasized bank robberies and Commie espionage cases over organized crime and narcotics.

Under pressure from Washington headquarters the Detroit FBI finally joined the Hoffa hunt four days after he disappeared. They immediately concluded it was a Mafia operation.

A Whodunit of National Interest

Newspapers and the networks went bonkers with speculation.

It was assumed Hoffa had been murdered. But where was his body?

He was under the end-zone of the old Giants stadium.

He was in a drum in the Florida everglades.

He was in another drum in a New Jersey landfill called Brother Moscato’s dump.

He was beneath Detroit’s Renaissance Center office complex.

He was under Interstate 75, an important trucking highway in southeast Michigan.

Bob Garrity was the FBI case agent. Hundreds of FBI agents got involved but it was Garrity’s case. I interviewed him in July, 1995, for WJBK-TV 2 in Detroit for a special on the twentieth anniversary of Hoffa’s disappearance. Garrity has declined interviews in recent times.

I talked with the retired FBI agent in front of the Machus Red Fox restaurant, the last place Hoffa was seen. Garrity expressed regret that the Bureau was slow getting involved.

“We weren’t on the scene for some of the criticals, the search of the car, the vehicle,” Garrity said. “When you’re in there you get a feel for the case right from the beginning…It’s something we always wished we would have had the opportunity to do.”

The FBI’s attention quickly turned to Charles “Chuckie” O’Brien, a Teamster hanger-on and a man who described himself as Hoffa’s foster son. Where was he the afternoon Hoffa disappeared? In his polygraphed interviews with the FBI, O’Brien kept changing his story and he kept passing the lie detector tests. He denied having anything to do with Hoffa’s disappearance. Garrity was forceful in his view of O’Brien’s role. “We believe Chuckie O’Brien was driving the vehicle. That’s been well documented.”

Tony Giacalone had an alibi and plenty of witnesses for that afternoon, but his son, Joey Giacalone, was soon in the spotlight because O’Brien was driving Joey Giacalone’s Mercury Marquis when Hoffa vanished.

The FBI seized Joey Giacalone’s car under a court order and highly trained tracking dogs quickly found Hoffa’s scent in the back seat and trunk of the vehicle.

A Las Vegas TV station promoting the Sheeran book dramatically but mistakenly claimed this was Joey Giacalone’s car. This is Hoffa’s Pontiac Grand Ville, which was filmed in a police garage. The police found the car in the restaurant parking lot. The Mercury Marquis has never been seen publicly. The media have made a lot of mistakes over the years in the Hoffa story.

Anthony Provenzano, the New Jersey hood, was a suspect from the get-go. FBI suspicion went in to overdrive when an imprisoned Provenzano associate and indicted partner in crime told agents that three New Jersey Mafia members had abducted and murdered Hoffa at the direction of Tony Pro.

Sheeran’s Tale is Shaky

Here’s where Sheeran’s claim that he was the Hoffa hitman starts to fall apart.

The late Robert Ozer, a zealous prosecutor with flaming red hair and a fiery courtroom demeanor went to court in December, 1975, and told a federal judge he wanted to have a police line-up. It would feature three of Provenzano’s New Jersey associates.

Ozer stated on the record that the government had an informant who “will identify them as active participants in the abduction and murder of James R. Hoffa.” He did not mention Frank Sheeran, who lived in Pennsylvania.

The line-up was needed, Ozer said, because the government had two witnesses who saw Hoffa in the restaurant parking lot.

The suspects in the line-up were Salvatore “Sally Bugs” Briguglio, his brother Gabriel Briguglio and Thomas “Tommy” Andretta. Frank Sheeran wasn’t there. Over the years there’s been widespread speculation that Sal Briguglio was the actual Hoffa killer. Briguglio was murdered gangland-style in New York in 1978. The line-up proved inconclusive.

In the book, Sheeran claims he flew in a private plane to the Pontiac Airport, not far from the restaurant where Hoffa was waiting. Talking about the airport, Sheeran said: “It’s gone now. If I’m not mistaken it’s a housing development.”

He is mistaken.

If attorney/author Charles Brandt had done some due-diligence fact-checking he would know the Pontiac airport has been in operation since the late 1920s. An easy search of Google Maps should have raised questions about Sheeran’s claims.

Sheeran told Brandt he drove past the Machus Red Fox restaurant on his way to the designated murder location. The self-styled hitman claims he didn’t worry about Hoffa spotting him because, Sheeran said, “the restaurant was set back quite a way in the parking lot.”

Not true. Not even a little bit.

Take a look at Google Maps, something Charles Brandt should have done to fact-check Sheeran.

The Machus Red Fox Restaurant, now called Andiamo’s, sits on the edge of busy Telegraph Rd., separated only by a sidewalk and a single row of parking spaces. It’s not “set back quite a way in the parking lot.” This can be verified by anyone.

Go to Google Maps. Search 6676 Telegraph Rd, Bloomfield Township, Michigan, 48301.

The restaurant location is critical to the Sheeran tale because he states in the book that he later went there with Chuckie O’Brien to pick up Hoffa to take him to the house where Sheeran claims he murdered him.

How could Hoffa’s killer be part of the team that picked him up at the restaurant and not know it sat at the edge of the road and not “back quite a way” in the parking lot?

This wasn’t just any hit, even for a jaded killer. This was a high-profile, nationally famous person. His abductor/killer would remember details about the restaurant location. Sheeran did not.

Anyone who looks can decide whether Sheeran’s story is true or false.

The house where Sheeran claimed he killed Hoffa raises serious questions, too. It’s in northwest Detroit. The houses are close together, within earshot of the next-door neighbors. It’s a quiet neighborhood, which makes it a risky location to fire shots, even inside a house, on a tranquil summer afternoon.

When Sheeran’s tale was revealed publicly, the Michigan State Police went to the house where the murder allegedly occurred and did a thorough search for Hoffa’s blood. They found some blood, but it wasn’t Hoffa’s blood.

‘No Indication He was There’

Sheeran was regarded by the FBI as the last of six suspects outside of Michigan, primarily because of his close association with Hoffa and his ties to Mafia members.

Here’s what Garrity, the FBI Hoffa case agent, told me:

“We interviewed Mr. Sheeran several times. He’s an interesting guy. He (was) close to organized crime people and he was one of the best friends of Mr. Hoffa.”

Garrity said telephone toll records showed Hoffa called Sheeran for something the day before he disappeared.

But as for Hoffa’s disappearance, “Was he there that day? I have no indication he was there.”

Garrity’s assessment of Sheeran’s role in the Hoffa case carries a lot of weight. As the case agent he participated in or read every witness interview, every piece of evidence, all the grand jury testimony and informant tips related to the Hoffa case.

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Dan Moldea, the author of the “Hoffa Wars” and other investigative reporting books, has probably spent more time on the Hoffa story than any other reporter. Through years of research, Moldea arguably knows more of the details of the Hoffa saga than any other journalist.

I interviewed Moldea by phone recently and asked him why he thinks Frank Sheeran made up the story that he killed Jimmy Hoffa. Moldea: “The bottom line is, for money, (it) was a cynical attempt to grab money at the end of his life to leave to his family, as opposed to being dead broke. He confessed to a crime he didn’t commit.”

Moldea is among those of us who covered the Hoffa case extensively who believe Sal Briguglio was Hoffa’s killer.

Moldea has more than hunches and conjecture to back up his assertion that Sheeran was lying in the “I Hear You Paint Houses” book. He has a March, 1979 letter sent to him by Philadelphia attorney Emmett Fitzpatrick, Sheeran’s lawyer at the time.

The letter reads in part:

“Mr. Sheeran wishes me to inform you that he emphatically denies the allegations about his involvement in Mr. Hoffa’s alleged death.”

Was Sheeran lying in 1979, or was he lying when he spun his tale to Charles Brandt in hopes of selling books that would generate royalties for the Sheeran family after his death?

A Movie Star Who Wouldn’t Listen

When Moldea got wind that actor Robert De Niro was in hot pursuit of the film rights to the Sheeran book, he undertook a mission to warn the actor about Sheeran. Moldea wanted a major Hoffa film to be accurate. In addition, film rights to books can mean big bucks. Moldea, frankly, wanted his book about Hoffa to be the one that Hollywood put up on the big screen as “the true story.”

Through a mutual friend, Moldea met with De Niro at an authors’ dinner in Washington, D.C. in December of 2014. “De Niro came and he couldn’t have been nicer,” Moldea told me. “Terrific guy.”

Moldea says he realized he only had a short amount of time to convince De Niro, so he said he got aggressive. Moldea says “I told him, ‘Bob, you’re being conned.’ I told him in no uncertain terms, ‘Bob, you are being conned.’”

Moldea says the conversation became hostile after that. “I talked to him the way he talks to people in the movies.”

It didn’t do any good. De Niro went ahead with a big film based on Sheeran’s dubious tale.

There have been a batch of books about the Hoffa disappearance. Each of them claims it has the REAL story. Now there’s a movie that claims it has the REAL story.

Bob Garrity, the FBI case agent on the Hoffa investigation, told me he often thought about writing his own book about Hoffa. But, he said, “I don’t have the last chapter.”