De Niro, after having lent himself to the inevitable selfies, sits down in a corner table with Gus Russo, author of books on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who introduces him to Dan Moldea, the longtime host of the Authors Dinner and authoritative author of a groundbreaking 1978 book, “The Hoffa Wars”. The celebrated New York actor is there to meet with Moldea, one of the leading experts on the mafia, but above all, Jimmy Hoffa, the legendary leader of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (Ibt), the “teamsters”, that is the truckers, an organization dominated by him during the 1950s and ’60s, who disappeared in a Detroit suburb on July 30, 1975 and was officially declared dead in 1982. It was a mystery that remained unsolved. It was, however, assumed that his disappearance was linked to Hoffa’s desire to return to the helm of the “teamsters” after his conviction, when he was sentenced in the mid-sixties, among other things, for pension fraud, in all 13 years, later reduced by the pardon granted by the then president Richard Nixon.
In 2007 De Niro purchased the rights of “I heard you paint houses”, written by Charles Brandt, lawyer and former Deputy Attorney General of Delaware, and published in 2004 with that original title, to make a film, which eventually became “The Irishman”, released last month. A thorny theme, embracing decades of murders signed by the Italian-American mafia with the contribution of the “teamsters”. Brandt claims that Jimmy Hoffa, defined by Bobby Kennedy as “the most powerful man in the United States after President”, John Fitzgerald, would have been killed by a giant Irishman, Hoffa’s right-hand man. Frank Sheeran, this his name, confessed it right to Brandt, adding also to be the killer of another twenty people
De Niro is sure: “This is the book, this is the story of the murder of Hoffa”. Interviewed by L’Espresso on the background of his conversation with De Niro, Moldea replies to the actor: “With all due respect, Bob, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you don’t know this case as I do. I don't play second banana to anybody on this case. I own this case. And I'll tell you right now, Bob, you're getting conned”. Gus Russo is surprised. De Niro also: “I'm not getting conned. I can show you the screenplay". Moldea: "I've already got the screenplay. It was provided by a friend. If you were to give me the screenplay, you would make me sign a nondisclosure agreement, which I will not sign because I plan to come after you”. In an interview in mid-November De Niro comments on his position on Moldea: “Dan is a well reputed writer, an authority on Hoffa. I have no problem with those who disagree with me. The way Sheeran describes what happened to Jimmy Hoffa is very plausible, it makes sense to me”.
Be that as it may, De Niro has embarked on the production of “The Irishman”, directed by Martin Scorsese, cutting out for himself the character of Frank Sheeran, and involving actors friends like Al Pacino, in the role of Jimmy Hoffa, Joe Pesci in Russell Bufalino’s role, Sicilian by birth, head of the Bufalino family, active in some areas of the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Florida. The film, three and a half hours of duration, was screened, only for a few days, in selected American and European cinemas, and is now in circulation, since the end of November, in subscription only on the Netflix circuit, that invested 160 million dollars in the production, a huge figure.
The reaction of Dan Moldea, a native of Ohio, on this subject, who almost feels of his “property”, should be explained. He published his first work, “The Hoffa Wars-The Rise and Fall of Jimmy Hoffa”, in 1978, just three years after the disappearance of the boss of Detroit: a tale on the misdeeds of the “teamsters”, related to organized crime, over 500 pages, a thousand interviews. He compares himself to Captain Ahab of Melville: Jimmy Hoffa is his “white whale”, a hunt that has been going on for 44 years. And when the first edition of “I heard you paint houses” appears, he devotes himself to another hunt, to errors, contradictions and discrepancies of its content, then poured into the film.
With L'Espresso Dan Moldea insists on one point: “Everything revolves around one source, Frank Sheeran. But Sheeran did not kill Hoffa. He cynically confessed to doing it for money. He was near the end, sick, he had to leave something to the family, thanks to royalties earned from the sale of the book, before dying in December 2003”. According to his copious statements, Sheeran does more. Not only he confessed to murdering Hoffa, but also to murdering Briguglio, that is the famous Sal (Sally Bugs), a boss of the teamsters of New Jersey, on March 21, 1978.
That fateful July 30, 1975, when for Jimmy Hoffa the bell was about to ring, at the crime scene, in an empty house in Detroit, Beaverland Street, according to Sheeran, quoted by Brandt, there are, besides Sheeran himself, one of the brothers Andretta (Steve and Tommy), as well as others nearby. But there’s a big gap in this version. Brandt writes, quoting Sheeran, “?Jimmy Hoffa got shot twice at a decent range in the back of the head behind his right ear. Back of his head, he could spin like half a turn. It all depends. My friend didn’t suffer”. Dan Moldea observes: “Sheeran didn’t say ‘I did it’”.
Charles Brandt has an answer, which reports to L’Espresso: “He told me in a conversation recorded in video”. And he also recalls his relationships with Frank Sheeran, how their collaboration was born: “It was in 1991, in Delaware, Angelo Bruno (in Scorsese’s film is played by Harvey Keitel, editor’s note), head of his family in Philadelphia, contacted me. He wanted to help Frank Sheeran, in prison with a heavy sentence”: 32 years, of which 12 still to be served. Frank had read a book written by Brandt in 1988, “The right to remain silent”. He had severe health problems and turned to that lawyer. Brandt manages to get him released. Sheeran, accused of being involved in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, would like to write a book that would clear him and, in five hours of interview, tells his project to Brandt, who does not support him, but is aware of a fact: that man, that criminal felt remorse, wanted to get off his chest, the need to open up, like, eight years later, in 1999, he will do. It’s the prelude to “I heard you paint houses”.
The mention of “painting houses” has a very precise meaning. When, in the 1950s, Russell Bufalino takes under his wing Frank Sheeran, until then truck driver and thief of chickens or quarters of oxen, he has a liking for him. He sees in him a character, Catholic moreover, like the Irish, who speaks even a bit of Italian, learned during World War 2, after landing in Sicily, with forays into Catania, where Russell was born. In addition, he points this giant man, for any “service”, right at Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa welcomes him with a trial-by-fire sentence: “I heard you paint houses”. “Painting” means “blood that splashes on the walls and drips on the floor when you shoot someone”. Sheeran’s answer is ready: “I do my own carpentry work”, basically coffins and the clearing out of bodies. The examination is passed. Frank Sheeran is enlisted, will become Jimmy Hoffa’s trusted man in the teamsters' union, infiltrated by the mob. And that expression will inspire the title of Brandt’s book.
Of course, Hoffa’s blood: why is there no blood at the famous crime scene? Sheeran claims that in the hall, on the floor, a layer of linoleum would be placed to collect the body after the execution. But the doubts remain, and not just for Dan Moldea. Under pressure from a Fox News service, luminol was used, a chemical spray that “illuminates” blood traces. Agents from the Bloomfield township Police Department in Michigan also intervened on site, allowing to remove wood-based parts. They then asked the FBI to analyze them. At last, in February 2005, the response came. It was a cold shower: blood samples found do not match Hoffa’s blood.
This brings us back to the central issue of Sheeran’s credibility. Dan Moldea, during his investigations, had interviewed him, like many other leading characters of the “Hoffa connection”. Exactly in March 1978, with some abrupt recollection: “His lawyer threatened to sue me for implicating him in the overall conspiracies on my website, saying that Sheeran had provided the government with evidence that he wasn't even in Detroit that day”.
But there’s something else. The Irish Sheeran, who for Rudy Giuliani, New York prosecutor in the 1960s, now an attorney for president Trump, was one of two non-Italians on the list of the mafia families of Italian descent, like Bonanno, Genovese, Colombo or Lucchese, was obsessed with revealing, in his own way, his exploits, stuffing them with fantasies. And so, while he was in prison, he persuaded an old cellmate of his, John Zeitts, a Vietnam veteran, to collect his memoirs, never published because Charles Brandt had in the meantime taken over the drafting of “I heard you paint houses”. Dan Moldea remembers: “In that book, ‘Big Irish’, Sheeran denied any responsibility in Hoffa’s death, saying that Hoffa had been murdered by Sal Briguglio. He was also saying that John Mitchell, the former attorney general of the United States, had engineered the murder for whatever purposes. Ridiculous”. John Mitchell was later implicated in the Watergate scandal and sent to prison.
Thus Dan Moldea, personally convinced that it was Briguglio who killed Hoffa, unleashes war on the background of the “Hoffa connection”. Without any fear. On the other hand, with the teamsters he has a long-standing acquaintance. Since 1974, when, in a garage in his city, Akron, he had been handed over by a local trade unionist, one of the first “whistleblowers”, the “black book” of the accounts of the organization: contributions paid by members were used to finance, at shamefully low rates, casinos in Las Vegas, some televangelists and companies controlled by the American mafia. An outstanding scoop for a young college graduate, would-be journalist. But that cost him, a six-foot giant, 100 kilos in weight, a bloody beating.
Today, “Ahab” Moldea, mindful of his dangerous past, persists in seeking: where is the body of Jimmy Hoffa? Sheeran claims that he was cremated at a funeral home in Detroit. Moldea doesn’t believe it. He follows instead another track, based on clues provided by an old source, then dead, Philip (Brother) Moscato, a “soldier” of the Genovese family and partner of Sal Briguglio: owner, together with Paul Cappola, of a landfill in New Jersey, the “Brother Moscato’s dump”. And it was Paul’s son, Frank, who received his father’s confidences on his deathbed: Jimmy Hoffa’s body would be carried in a limousine at night, stuffed into a large drum, buried at Moscato's dump. Last late September Frank Cappola led Dan Moldea to the scene, let himself be filmed, indicating the point in question and signing a sworn testimony, recorded with a notary.
Meanwhile the book “The Irishman”, in the United States, has leapt to the top in the ranking of books in “non-fiction” list, driven by the success of the film, which Dan Moldea himself considers beautiful. Charles Brandt also mentions income agreements: “A share will go to Frank’s daughters”. The advance was about 20,000 dollars, while, for the movie rights earnings, the figure is around 120,000 dollars. Mr. Brandt stresses that, with his attorney activity, has already earned much, “million dollars”: he does not need that money. He feels very satisfied, for having solved the puzzle Hoffa, as well as other famous criminal cases, explained by Frank Sheeran. For example, that of the mobster Crazy” Joey” Gallo, murdered by the same Sheeran in 1972, at the exit from the restaurant “Umberto’s Clam House”, in Little Italy.
But what the lawyer Brandt wants to emphasize is his strategy: to press on Sheeran to persuade him to confess his crimes, little by little. Just to confess, as Sheeran did before with a priest, when he was about to die, and immediately after with him. Even a member of the Bufalino family would have confirmed that what was described in the book is true.
True? Untrue? Even Martin Scorsese asks himself this question, answering to the daily “Corriere della Sera: “In my film I stand by what Charles Brandt wrote about the end of Jimmy Hoffa, but I do not want to pass it off as truth”.
(with the collaboration of Fabrizio Calvi)
