By J. R. de Szigethy
Exclusive to AmericanMafia.com
January 26, 2001

The labor leader supported by the U. S. government in its efforts to root out the Mafia’s stranglehold over the powerful International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union has now himself been indicted on Federal charges. Ron Carey, the "reform" candidate who rose to the Presidency of the Teamsters in the 1990s has been charged with 7 counts of Perjury in regards to the illegal transfer of over $800,000 in Union money to fund Carey’s 1996 re-election campaign. The U. S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan claims that Carey and his associates had this money donated to other Unions as well as the Democratic National Committee, and that these organizations then illegally kicked back the funds as donations to Carey’s re-election campaign. Through his attorney, Carey has pleaded not guilty and predicts he will be vindicated of all charges.

Richard Trumka, the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, has been charged as Carey’s co-conspirator in the kickback scheme. Five Carey associates have already pleaded guilty, including Carey’s former campaign manager Jere Nash, political consultant Martin Davis, Teamsters official William Hamilton, and fundraiser Michael Ansara. Trumka and Ansara were top fundraisers for Al Gore in his failed year 2000 Presidential campaign.

Carey served for over 20 years as the President of a Union of UPS workers in New York and counted among his supporters workers involved in radical leftist causes. Carey took over as IBT President in 1991 but by 1994 indications had emerged of trouble yet to come. In that year a Federal Judge who was among a Panel appointed by the Justice Department to help rid the Teamsters of Mafia influence sent a letter to authorities in New York urging the cessation of an investigation into allegations that Carey was associated with the Luchese Mafia Family. In the 1996 election Carey edged out his opponent, Jimmy Hoffa Jr., the son of the late Union legend who, in league with the Mafia, had built the Teamsters into a powerful but feared Union nationwide.

Federal monitors threw out the results of the 1996 election when evidence of the illegal funding was uncovered. In the second election ordered by the Federal government, Hoffa Jr. won a decisive victory over Carey. In 1998 Carey was permanently removed from the Teamsters Union as a result of the investigation of the charges upon which he is now under indictment.

While current Teamsters President James Hoffa Jr. has never been charged with a crime, his actions in 1991 on behalf of Local 707 in New York raised the attention of Federal Mafia probers. Hoffa worked for two months that year as legal counsel for Local 707. In 1996 that Union’s President James McNeil was indicted along with Colombo Family members John Orena and Thomas Petrizzo in a Union pension fund kickback scheme. Petrizzo, who was among scores of defendants acquitted in one of the four Federal trials that resulted in the infamous Colombo Family War of 1991-94, pleaded guilty to the pension fund charges.

Hoffa Jr.’s father was convicted in 1964 on jury tampering and fraud charges in a case that was initiated by U. S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. After spending four years in prison, President Richard Nixon commuted Hoffa’s sentence and Hoffa engaged in an attempt to once again take control of the Teamsters. However, in 1975 Hoffa vanished without a trace and is presumed murdered. Authorities believe Genovese Family capo Tony Provenzano, who also served as President of a corrupt Teamsters Local in New Jersey, was among those Teamsters officials who plotted the murder of Hoffa. No one has ever been charged in Hoffa’s murder. Provenzano was eventually convicted of murder in an unrelated case and died in prison.

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