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Jimmy Hoffa
Born	February 14, 1913(1913-02-14) Brazil, Indiana, U.S.
Died	(disappeared July 30, 1975)
Occupation	Labor union leader
Children	James P. Hoffa, Barbara Ann Crancer

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James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa (February 14, 1913 - probably died July-early August, 1975, exact date of death unknown) was an American labor leader and criminal convict. As the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Hoffa wielded considerable influence. After he was convicted of attempted bribery of a grand juror, he served nearly a decade in prison. He is also well-known in popular culture for the mysterious circumstances surrounding his unexplained disappearance and presumed death. His son James P. Hoffa is the current president of the Teamsters.

James R. Hoffa's paternal ancestors were Pennsylvania Germans ("Pennsylvania Dutch") who migrated to Indiana in the mid-1800s. His maternal ancestors were Irish-American. Hoffa was born in Brazil, Indiana, the son of a coal driller, John Cleveland Hoffa, and Viola "Ola" Riddle. His father died when he was young and Hoffa could not stay in school.

Hoffa was later hired as a union organizer for Local 299 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). He and other IBT organizers fought with management in their organizing efforts in the Detroit, Michigan, area.

Hoffa used organized crime connections to shake down an association of small grocery stores. This led to his first criminal conviction, for which he paid a fine. After he rose to a leadership position in Local 299, Hoffa continued to work with organized crime in Detroit, using the threat of labor trouble to induce business to use a mobster controlled clothier (Friedman and Schwarz, 1988).

He was a natural leader who was upset at the mistreatment of workers. In 1933, age 20, he helped organize his first strike of "swampers", the workers who loaded and unloaded strawberries and other produce on and off delivery trucks.^{[citation needed]}

The Teamsters union organized truckers & firefighters, first throughout the Midwest and then nationwide. It skillfully used quickie strikes, secondary boycotts and other means of leveraging union strength at one company to organize workers and win contract demands at others. The union also used less lawful means to bring some employers into line.^{[citation needed]}

Hoffa took over the presidency of the Teamsters in 1957, when his predecessor, Dave Beck, was convicted on bribery charges and imprisoned. Hoffa worked to expand the union and in 1964 succeeded in bringing virtually all North American over-the-road truck drivers under a single national master freight agreement. Hoffa then pushed to try to bring the airlines and other transport employees into the union. This was of great concern to many as a strike involving all transport systems would be devastating for the national economy.^{[citation needed]}

President John F. Kennedy and his successor Lyndon B. Johnson both put pressure on Hoffa through John's brother Robert F. Kennedy, the Attorney General, attempting to investigate his activities and disrupt his ever-growing union. The Kennedys in particular were sure that Hoffa had pocketed a great deal of union money. Having expelled the Teamsters in the 1950s, the AFL-CIO also disliked Hoffa and aided the Democrats in their investigations.

Ultimately, Hoffa was not nearly as beholden to the Mob as to his successor and longtime crony Frank Fitzsimmons, who would have been jailed if he had not died from cancer. While Hoffa was a brilliant tactician who knew how to play one employer against another and who used the union's power to rationalize the industry by driving out weaker employers, "Fitz" was content to gather the other benefits of high office. The deregulation of the trucking industry pushed by Edward Kennedy and others during Fitzsimmons' tenure eventually destroyed much of what Hoffa had won for his members under the National Master Freight Agreement by making it much harder to maintain the standards Hoffa had achieved.^{[citation needed]}

Hoffa's son, James P. Hoffa, is the Teamsters' current leader; his daughter, Barbara Ann Crancer, currently serves as an associate circuit court judge in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1964, Hoffa was convicted of attempted bribery of a grand juror and jailed for 15 years. On December 23, 1971,[1] however, he was released when President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence to time served on the condition he not participate in union activities for 10 years. Hoffa was planning to sue to invalidate that restriction in order to reassert his power over the Teamsters when he disappeared at, or sometime after, 2:45 pm^[1] on July 30, 1975 from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan ^[2], a suburb of Detroit. He had been due to meet two Mafia leaders, Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone from Detroit and Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano from Union City, New Jersey and New York City.

DNA evidence examined in 2001 placed Hoffa in the car of longtime Teamster associate Charles O'Brien, despite O'Brien's claims Hoffa had never been in the car. Police interviews later that year failed to produce any indictments.

In July 2003, after the convicted killer Richard Powell told authorities that a briefcase containing a syringe used to subdue Hoffa was buried at a house in Hampton Township, Michigan, another backyard was examined and excavated. Again, nothing was found^[3][4].

In 2003, the FBI searched the backyard of a home in Hampton Township, Michigan formerly frequented by Frank Sheeran, Second World War veteran, Mafia hitman, truck driver, Teamsters official and close friend of Hoffa. Nothing significant was found.

In 2004, Charles Brandt, a former prosecutor and Chief Deputy Attorney General of Delaware, published the book I Heard You Paint Houses. The title is based on a euphemistic exchange apparently used by hitmen and their would-be employers. "I heard you paint houses." "Yes, and I do my own carpentry, too." House painting alludes to the splatter of blood on walls, and "doing my own carpentry" to the task of disposing of the body. Brandt recounted a series of confessions by Sheeran regarding Hoffa's murder, and claimed that Sheeran had begun contacting him because he wished to assuage feelings of guilt. Over the course of several years, he spoke many times by phone to Brandt (which Brandt recorded) during which he acknowledged his role as Hoffa's killer, acting on orders from the Mafia. He claimed to have used his friendship with Hoffa to lure him to a bogus meeting in Bloomfield Hills and drive him to a house in northwestern Detroit, where he shot him twice before fleeing and leaving Hoffa's body behind. An updated version of Brandt's book claims that Hoffa's body was cremated within an hour of Sheeran's departure.

On February 14, 2006, Lynda Milito, wife of Gambino crime family member Louie Milito, claimed that her husband had told her during an argument in 1988 that he had killed Hoffa and dumped his body near Staten Island's Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City.

FBI Agents digging for Hoffa's remains in an open field — which is part of a farmhouse in Milford Township, Michigan on May 17, 2006. As reported by ABC station WXYZ-TV in Detroit.

In April 2006, news reports surfaced that hitman Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski had confessed to author Philip Carlo that he was part of a group of five men who had kidnapped and murdered Hoffa. The claim's credibility is questionable, as Kuklinski has become somewhat notorious for repeatedly claiming to have killed people — including Roy DeMeo — that concrete evidence has proved he could not have killed. The story forms part of the book The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer, which was released on July 1, 2006.

On May 17, 2006, acting on a tip, the FBI began digging for Hoffa's remains outside of a barn on what is now the Hidden Dreams Farm (satellite photo) in Milford Township, Michigan where they surveyed the land and began to dig up parts of the 85-acre parcel, according to federal officials. More than 40 agents sectioned off a piece of the property where they believed Hoffa's bones might be. Federal agents would not say who tipped them off, but said they received information on a group of people who had met on the land 30 years before. The FBI has made contact with Hoffa's daughter, but no other information has been released^[5]. It is not known if the FBI has found anything, although images taken from a helicopter appeared to show agents digging something out of the ground. The investigation team included forensic experts from the bureau's Washington laboratory and anthropologists, archaeologists, engineers and architects.

On May 18, 2006, the Detroit Free Press reported that the Hoffa search was prompted by information supplied by Donovan Wells, 75, a prisoner at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, KY. The newspaper said Wells, who was jailed for 10 years in January 2004 for using his Detroit-area trucking company and drivers to ship large quantities of marijuana from Texas to Detroit from 1998-2001, was trying to parlay his knowledge about Hoffa's disappearance to get out of prison early. On May 20, 2006, the Free Press, quoting anonymous sources, said one of Wells's lawyers had threatened to go to the media during the previous year unless the US Attorney's Office acted on Wells's information and followed through on a pledge to seek his release from prison. The next day, the newspaper quoted Wells's lawyer from a 1976 criminal case, James Elsman of Birmingham, who said the FBI in 1976 had ignored Wells's offer to tell them where Hoffa was buried. The lawyer said the FBI ignored him again on May 18, after he learned that the FBI was digging in Milford Township and called the bureau to offer the information. Outraged, Elsman said he then offered the information to the Bloomfield Township Police Department. On May 22, an FBI agent and township police detective visited Elsman's office, but Elsman declined to offer much information, saying he first wanted them to provide him with a signed release from Wells. Elsman also offered to visit the horse farm to help agents pinpoint where to dig. The FBI didn't take him up on his offer.

On May 24, 2006, the FBI removed a large barn on the farm to look under it for Hoffa.

On May 30, 2006 the FBI ended the search for Hoffa's body without any remains found at the Hidden Dreams Farm.

On June 16, 2006, the Detroit Free Press published in its entirety the so-called Hoffex Memo, a 56-page report the FBI prepared for a January 1976 briefing on the case at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The report, which the FBI has called the definitive account of what agents believe happened to Hoffa, can be found^[6].

In November of 2006 KLAS-TV Channel 8 Las Vegas interviewed author Charles Brandt about the latest news regarding Hoffa's murder and disappearance. Brandt claims that Hoffa's body was taken from the murder scene and possibly driven two minutes away to the Grand Lawn Cemetery where he was cremated.^[7]

On December 9th 2007 the E! Channel debuted the 20 Most Shocking Unsolved Crimes. The disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa was number four. The house at Beaverland and Curtis streets where Frank Sheeran allegedly killed Hoffa was highlighted along with its proximity to the Grand Lawn Cemetery in Detroit.

• The 1978 movie F.I.S.T., starring Sylvester Stallone as warehouse worker Johnny Kovak rising through the ranks of the fictional Teamster-like "Federation of Interstate Truckers", is loosely based on Hoffa's life.
• In 1992, the semi-factual motion picture Hoffa was released, starring Jack Nicholson in the title role and Danny DeVito (also the film's director) as Hoffa's fictional right-hand man.
• Many films have included sarcastic lines or jokes about the location of Hoffa's body.
• In the 2003 Jim Carrey comedy Bruce Almighty, Hoffa's body is found by a police dog at a local park in Buffalo, NY.
• In the 1980 comedy Nine to Five, starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton, after stealing a body, presumed to be their boss Mr. Hart, from the hospital, all three girls are riding in a car and Tomlin's character, Violet, is talking about putting the body's feet in cement blocks and pitching it off a pier which prompted Parton's character, Doralee, to say "Are you crazy? They'll find it, they always find it!" to which Violet replies "Oh-ho crazy am I? They never found Jimmy Hoffa!"
• In the 1991 Chevy Chase movie Nothing But Trouble, Chase and Demi Moore's characters find a newspaper clipping on the wall saying "Jimmy Hoffa Still Missing."
• In the 2005 movie Mobsters and Mormons, Carmine "The Beans" Pasquale (played by Mark Decarlo) jokingly calls the bishop the "Mormon Jimmy Hoffa", and tells him that if he thinks someone's after him, that he should leave a note saying that he's buried under the BYU football stadium.

• The 1983 TV mini-series Blood Feud dramatized the conflict between Hoffa (portrayed by Robert Blake) and Robert F. Kennedy (portrayed by Cotter Smith). (This conflict in real life reached levels of almost childish absurdity. Hoffa and Kennedy once ran into one another at a function both were attending, whereupon they engaged in an arm-wrestling contest. Hoffa claimed to have won.)
• In a special about Robert F. Kennedy on the Discovery Channel, a reporter claims he interviewed a mobster who claimed Hoffa's body was crushed, and then put into a smelter.
• In Season 1, Episode 13 of MythBusters, "Buried in Concrete", Adam and Jamie use a ground penetrating radar device to search several rumored burial locations within Giants Stadium. They find no readings consistent with a cavity left by a body that had rotted away.
• In the Season 4 episode 6 of The 4400, "The Marked", a 4400 makes a low budget movie about the disappearance of Hoffa.
• In Season 6 part 1 of HBO's The Sopranos, while a team of doctors are operating on Mobster Tony Soprano, a doctor says "Oh my God!" another says "What is it?" and the doctor claims jokingly "I think I found Jimmy Hoffa!"
• In his comedy special Playin' With Your Head, George Carlin mentions Hoffa during a bit about how he believes the concept of "missing persons" defies the laws of physics; Carlin comments "Jimmy Hoffa isn't missing. He's in an oil drum in New Jersey!"
• In an episode of CSI:NY, after a tip off from a mobster, a body of is found buried under Giants Stadium. One of the Jersey CSI jokes that he thought Hoffa being buried in the stadium was a myth. It later turned out to be someone who crossed the Tanglewood Boys.
• In episode 116 of MADtv we see "Casino Man," a combined parody of the films Casino and Encino Man where, instead of digging up a caveman, two teenagers dig up Jimmy Hoffa who promptly shouts, "Next time you bury someone, make sure he's dead!"
• In a Frasier episode, "A Words to the Wiseguy", Martin is found asleep after attempting to stay up all night to catch a newspaper thief. Frasier makes a sarcastic comment about how Martin worked as "watchman for Jimmy Hoffa".
• In an episode of 'Dexter' Sgt. Doakes says "We have less information about you, than Jimmy Hoffa!" about Dexter.

• Aimee Mann has a song entitled "Jimmy Hoffa Jokes"
• A capella duo Paul and Storm wrote a song entitled "Other places Jimmy Hoffa Isn't"
• New Zealand Post-Rock band Jakob has a song entitled "Jimmy Hoffa" on their album Cale:Drew
• Rapper Young Dro has a song called "Cartoon" in which he says "All you niggas pop or play will lay where Jimmy Hoffa lay"
• Rapper Andre Nickatina has as song called "All Star Chuck Taylors" where he says, "You be like Nicky man no fair, real propa, I disappear like Jimmy Hoffa."
• "One La Villa Strangiato Rant" by Rush includes a joke about Hoffa. While guitarist Alex Lifeson walks down a beach with a metal detector, he says, "Hey look, Jimmy Hoffa! What do you know!"

• On one of Gucci Mane's songs he say " messing with us be missing like Jimmy Hoffa"
• In Jon McLaughlin's song "Amelia's Missing" he mentions Hoffa along with other missing people "I can't find Crazy Horse, can't find Hoffa/And Amelia's missing somewhere out at sea."

• Walter Sheridan's book The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa is noted as an account of Hoffa's trials in Tennessee. It is usually considered to be biased, however, as Sheridan was a lawyer working for Robert Kennedy.
• Two other books are The Hoffa Wars by investigative reporter Dan Moldea, which details Hoffa's rise to power (see below); and Contract Killer by William Hoffman and Lake Headley, which attempts to examine Hoffa's murder in great detail.
• Jimmy Hoffa is also a supporting character in the James Ellroy novel American Tabloid, where it is suggested that Jimmy enjoyed boating trips wherein he and friends would chum the waters, shoot sharks with Thompson submachine guns and/or beat sharks to death with nail studded baseball bats. He also appears as a character in Ellroy's follow-up novel The Cold Six Thousand.
• The novel, Pictures At Eleven, tells the story of Al Strohmeier, a manic, offbeat, and fantastically average midwestern computer salesman who stumbles onto the plot behind and becomes the one and only witness to Hoffa's mysterious disappearance in 1975 (Lithium).
• Jim Clay's book Hoffa! Ten Angels Swearing. An Authorized Biography published in 1965 by Beaverdam Books in Virginia as a paperback original defends Hoffa's position in his own words.
• In the book The Dilbert Future by Scott Adams, in Chapter Three, "Technology Predictions", when explaining how ISDN works (or doesn't), Adams says: "You have a better chance of finding Jimmy Hoffa in your documentation than you have of finding the information you need to order an ISDN line." (page 42, Boxtree paperback edition).

• Hoffa is something of a recurring gag in the comic strip Piranha Club by Bud Grace. In one storyline, the lead character, Ernie, finds the frozen corpse of Jimmy Hoffa when he is stranded in Tibet. In another, an Amazon tribe kidnaps Sid's pet piranha, and replaces him with Jimmy Hoffa's shrunken head. Ernie and Arnold also finds Jimmy Hoffa frozen inside a glacier while scaling Mount Bayonne.
• In 2006, low-cost airline Spirit Airlines released a "Hunt for Hoffa" advertising campaign with the tagline "Help us find Hoffa with our Hunt for Hoffa game and enjoy fares from just $39 each way." The point of the game was to dig for Hoffa's body by clicking grids on the airline's website, and "winners" were taken to another webpage, saying "You found Hoffa!," thanking them for assisting the National Spirit Sale Center find the politician's body.^[8] Within hours after the promotion debuted, the company received many complaints, and the promotion was taken down immediately and changed to another promotion, simply titled "Happy Sale." This promotion was later listed as #8 on CNN Money's 101 Dumbest Moments in Business.^[9]

• Arthur A. Sloane, Hoffa, MIT Press, 1992.
• Charles Brandt, I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran and the inside story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the last ride of Jimmy Hoffa, Steerforth Press, Hanover (NH, USA) 2004 (ISBN 1-58642-077-1).
• Dan E. Moldea, The Hoffa Wars, Charter Books, New York: 1978 (ISBN 0-441-34010-5).

• List of people who have disappeared
• Teamsters Union
• Death in absentia
• the Mafia in America
• Hoffa (1992 film loosely based on Hoffa's life)
• James P. Hoffa

• Satellite view of the Hidden Dreams Farm.
• Latest Hoffa information Regarding the disposal of Hoffa's body. Updated 11-09-07.
• Detroit Free Press Article 7-01-07
• Richard Nixon Secret Ties