Judge JJ

“Here, Edward Partin, a jailbird languishing in a Louisiana jail under indictments for such state and federal crimes as embezzlement, kidnapping, and manslaughter (and soon to be charged with perjury and assault), contacted federal authorities and told them he was willing to become, and would be useful as, an informer against Hoffa, who was then about to be tried in the Test Fleet case.

“A motive for his doing this is immediately apparent — namely, his strong desire to work his way out of jail and out of his various legal entanglements with the State and Federal Governments. And it is interesting to note that, if this was his motive, he has been uniquely successful in satisfying it. In the four years since he first volunteered to be an informer against Hoffa he has not been prosecuted on any of the serious federal charges for which he was at that time jailed, and the state charges have apparently vanished into thin air.“

Chief Justice Earl Warren in Hoffa versus The United States, 1966

Like most of my family’s history, Wendy’s story is online in court records. The first one that pops up if you Google Wendy Rothdram Partin (Rothdram was her maiden name), Edward Grady Partin, and me, Jason Ian Partin (the court records may have used my middle name to differentiate me from my cousin, Jason Partin, who was my Uncle Joe Partin’s son). It’s from September of 1976, one year and two months after Jimmy Hoffa vanished, when my family’s federal protection was no longer enforced.

This is a suit by Edward Partin, Jr., plaintiff, seeking a divorce from his wife, Wendy Rothdram Partin, defendant, after having lived separate and apart for more than one year following a judgment of separation from bed and board. Plaintiff also seeks custody of the minor child, Jason Ian Partin, and the defendant reconvened asking that she be granted the permanent care, custody and control of the minor child.

The Trial Court had previously, by ex parte order, awarded the temporary care, custody and control of the minor to Mr. and Mrs. James Ed White. Following trial on the merits, plaintiff was awarded a divorce as well as the permanent care, custody and control of the minor child, with the temporary physical custody of the minor child to remain with Mr. and Mrs. James Ed White. The defendant has appealed this judgment as it regards the custody of the child.

This couple was married when plaintiff was 17 and the defendant was 16 years of age. Nine months following the marriage, they gave birth to young Jason. While we are not concerned with the facts surrounding the separation and divorce, it was apparently one of incompatibility as defendant testified that at the age of 17 she found herself married to a man who did not love her and so she left. Her testimony was as follows:

“As I say I was emotionally upset. I was receiving little support from Edward. I was scared, very confused. I didn’t know exactly which way to turn. I felt I had no one to listen and help with the situation at hand.”

Several weeks later she returned and lived with her husband again. She found that the situation hadn’t changed, and felt she had to get away again. She heard of a man who wanted someone to share expenses on a trip to California, so she quit her job and with her last wages left with him. She testified that she had no sexual relations with this man, and plaintiff does not accuse her of such. Following this trip she returned to Baton Rouge still emotionally upset. Her husband was suing her for separation and told her he was going to take custody of Jason. She went to live with her aunt and uncle, got a full time job with Kelly Girls paying $512.00 per month.

In February, 1975, the defendant’s mother was injured in an accident and she moved in with her to care for her. In September, 1975, following the recuperation of the mother she returned to live with her aunt and uncle.

During these above periods of time, the minor child lived with Mr. and Mrs. White. The Whites came to regard Jason as their own and, although the separation judgment awarded custody to the plaintiff with reasonable visitation privileges to the defendant, the Whites decided the defendant-mother could only see the child two days a month and that she could never keep the child over night. The reason the defendant did not contest custody at the separation trial was because at the time she felt unable emotionally and financially to care for her son.

We note that the petition for separation was grounded on habitual intemperance, as well as abandonment of the husband and the minor child. There are no other grounds listed for the separation nor for custody. The petition for the separation and custody of the minor child was not contested by the defendant, and a default judgment was granted. Defendant testified in the instant proceedings that the reason she did not contest custody in the separation proceeding was that she was not financially or emotionally capable of caring for the minor, and that knowing the Whites were going to be caring for him, she knew he would be in good hands.

Though the petition for separation had as one of its allegations “habitual intemperance”, the plaintiff in the instant proceeding testified that he had never accused his wife of drinking, nor had he ever seen her drink.

The welfare of the child is the main issue that the Court is concerned with. This issue is more important than any wishes or wants the parents may have. Fulco v. Fulco, 259 La. 1122, 254 So.2d 603 (1971), rehearing denied (1971). As a general rule, and in particular where children of young age are involved, preference is given to the mother in custody cases. This preference is very simply explained, the mother is normally better able to care for the child and look after the education, rearing, and training necessary. Estes v. Estes, 261 La. 20, 258 So.2d 857 (1972), rehearing denied (1972).

No argument is made that the mother is not now morally or emotionally fit to care for the child, or that the house in which she lives is not a proper place to rear a child. In fact, the Trial Judge admitted that it was a fine home.

The Trial Judge has not favored us with written reasons for judgment, however, we must conclude from various statements by the Trial Judge that appear in the record that he could find no fault with the defendant, nor was there anything wrong with the house in which she lived. It thus becomes apparent to this Court that the Trial Judge applied the “double burden” rule to the defendant. We have already ruled that the “double burden” rule does not apply in this situation, and thus, under the established jurisprudential rules, we can see no reason why the defendant-mother should not be granted the permanent care, custody and control of the minor child with reasonable visitation privileges granted to the father.

In consideration of our above opinion, there is no need to discuss the specification of error as to the ex parte granting of custody to the Whites.

Therefore, for the above and foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Trial Court is reversed, and IT IS ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that the defendant-appellant, Wendy Rothdram Partin, be and she is hereby granted the permanent care, custody and control of the minor, Jason Ian Partin, and IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that this matter be and it is hereby remanded to the Trial Court for the purpose of fixing specific visitation privileges on behalf of plaintiff-appellee Edward Partin, Jr. All costs of the appeal are to be paid by plaintiff-appellee.

I would languish in the foster system for another three years, because my dad appealed and Mr. and Mrs. White, whom I called PawPaw and MawMaw, would fight the best they could to retain me. PawPaw was the janitor of Glen Oaks High School, without the resources of my dad and Big Daddy (which is what everyone called my grandfather), and to understand the hurdles PawPaw faced and what Wendy was going through as she fought for custody of me, it’s useful to know more about Big Daddy.

Big Daddy was a national celebrity in the 1960’s, and a Louisiana icon from the 1950’s until his death in 1990. National news showcased him as a trustworthy witness against Jimmy Hoffa, who was probably the most famous man in America not a Kennedy back then. When Hoffa penned his first autobiography from a New Jersey federal penitentiary, he focused practically half the book on Big Daddy. Pages 238-239 give you an idea of who my grandfather was, and what Hoffa thought of him:

It was Edward Grady Partin who volunteered the testimony that sealed my doom in the Chattanooga court.

You may have read about him. Thanks to a government sponsorship he was portrayed as something of a national hero. he somehow looked the part, too: a rugged, firm-jawed man with slightly wavy hair and the appearance of sincerity and honesty that would have made him a successful salesman. Ah, you’d say upon meeting him, there’s a true-blue blood American, a churchgoer, no doubt, a man who contributes regularly to charity, a fellow who devotes much time to community-service groups, a chap who turns over most of his paycheck to a divorced wife.

But there’s another Edward Grady Partin, one the jury never got to hear about.

This Edward Grady Partin is mentioned in criminal records from coast to coast dating from 1943, when he was convicted on a breaking and entering charge, to late 1962, when he was indicted for first-degree manslaughter. During that twenty-year period Partin had been in almost constant touch with the law. He had had a bad-conduct discharge from the Marine Corps. He had been indicted for kidnapping. He ha been charged with raping a young Negro girl. He had been indicted for embezzlement and for falsifying records. He had been indicted for forgery. He had been charged with conspiring with one of Fidel Castro’s generals to smuggle illicit arms into communist Cuba.

Most of Big Daddy’s criminal records, as Chief Justice Earl Warren said of the charges against him, have vanished into thin air, like a magicians silk handkerchief vanishes from a closed hand, or like Jimmy Hoffa from a Detroit parking lot in July of 1975.

Walter Sheridan, who would retire from the FBI to run Bobby Kennedy’s presidential campaign until Bobby was shot and killed in the kitchen of the Los Angeles Ambassador hotel by the redundantly named Siran Siran, became a trusted NBC news correspondent and published his opus about pursuing Jimmy Hoffa in 1972, coincidentally coming out just before I was born, couldn’t deny the charges against his star witness. The index in Walter’s book is loonger than most people’s autobiography, and includes practically every name in government, organized crime, and the Teamsters Union from the 1950’s to 1972; Big Daddy’s name is used almost as often as Hoffa or Bobby Kennedy’s. Walter summarized Hoffa’s claims on page 226 of The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa:

Partin, like Hoffa, had come up the hard way. While Hoffa was building his power base in Detroit during the early forties, Partin was drifint around the country getting in and out of trouble with the law. When he was seventeen he received a bad conduct discharge from the Marine Corps for stealing a watch. One month later he was charged in Roseburg, Oregon, for car theft. The case was dimissed with the stipulation that Partin return to his home in Natchez, Mississippi,. Two years later Patin was back on the west Coast where he pleaded guilting to second degree burglary. He served three years in the Washington State Reformatory and was paroled in February, 1947. One year later, back in Mississippi, Partin was again in trouble and served ninety days on a pleas to a charge of petit larceny. Then he decided to settle down. He joined the Teamster Union, went to work and married a quiet, attractive Baton Rouge girl. In 1952 he was elected to the top post in Local 5 in Baton Rouge. When Hoffa pushed his sphere of influence into Louisiana, Partin joined forces and helped to forcibly install Hoffa’s man, Chuck Winters from Chicago, as head of the Teamsters in New Orleans.

Every book about Hoffa focuses on Big Daddy, and every person who met him describes him as big, brutal, and irresistibly charming. But with so many records having vanished, discrepancies and mistakes abound. I had always wanted to write a book about the details behind those discrepancies, like Big Daddy’s dishonorable discharge when he was 17; that was for the petite larceny charge Walter misplaced chronologically. That larceny charge is described in depth in my great-Uncle Doug’s self-published 2017 autobiography, penned from his veterans convalescent home in Mississippi, “From my Brother’s Shadow: Teamster Douglas Westley Partin Finally Tells His Side of the Story.”

Doug’s book, like his 88 year old mind by the time he was in the convalescent home, is riddled with chronological errors and news from the 1970’s that has long since been discredited. But it matches stories I heard him and Big Daddy swapping in the 70’s and 80’s. An entire chapter is dedicated to Big Daddy and Doug stealing all the guns in Woodville Mississippi by breaking into the Sears and Roebuck store.

Big Daddy tied a rope around Doug’s 12 year old waist and lowered him down through a hole in the roof, and heaved him up hand-over-hand with Doug carrying as many hunting rifles, shotguns and pistols as he could carry a time. Over the course of an hour, they emptied the store and hauled all but a few of the guns two hours downriver to New Orleans, where they sold them to young members of Carlos Marcello’s mafia family and returned to Woodville as rich kids. They bought motorcycles and spent a summer having the time of their lives, but that was during the depression and they attracted attention.

The sherif got a warrant and inspected Grandma Foster’s home (Grandpappy Grady Partin had left, and Grandma remarried a man named Foster), and found two hunting rifles, two shotguns, and two pistols. They were arrested, but Doug was freed because he was 12. The judge gave Big Daddy an ultimatum: join the marines or go to jail. It was WWII, and big brutal soldiers were in demand. Big Daddy agreed to the terms, which said do join but did not specify how long to remain. Upon arriving at basic training, he punched the commanding officer in the face and, on impulse, reached down and removed the commanding officer’s watch; the officer wouldn’t go on record that a 17 year old knocked him out, so Big Daddy was charged with stealing a watch. He was back in Woodville within two weeks, and with most young men off to war he quickly took control of the sawmill that was the center of Woodville’s town and economy, and with his prowess at finding nuances in contracts, he quickly led their union and the truckers union that hauled away cut lumber. Hoffa would hear about this, and appreciate Big Daddy’s approach to business, which is how that relationship began.

He ran Woodville, and the reason he wasn’t sent to jail for raping that young girl was that, according to Doug, not only did every jury of his peers know Big Daddy, one of them, the local barber, said: “Ain’t no white man deserve to go to jail for nothing he did to a Negro girl” (though he used a more vulgar term).

Doug would grow up, as he said, in Big Daddy’s shadow. When Big Daddy moved to Baton Rouge with Mamma Jean in the early 1950’s, Doug joined the air force and served honorably for two years before following Big Daddy and Uncle Joe to Baton Rouge.

Mamma Jean gradually learned of Big Daddy’s dealings with the mafia and Castro, and in 1962 she fled and hid her five children – my dad, Uncle Keith, and Aunts Janice, Cynthia, and Theresa – in her family’s hunting and fishing camps spread across the swamps, woods, and rivers of southern Louisiana. When Big Daddy was arrested that summer for kidnapping, and manslaughter charges were soon filed, he called the New Orleans FBI office and had FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Bobby Kennedy free him in order to spy on Hoffa. Walter Sheridan, who was then the FBI’s director of the 500 agent Get Hoffa task force, with a budget so immense that journalists called it “the most expensive, fruitless pursuit of one man by a government in the history of the world,” tracked down Mamma Jean and offered her a deal to remain silent and allow Big Daddy to be portrayed as an all American hero, foreshadowing his eventual testimony and working diligently to whitewash his past.

My dad moved in with Grandma Foster, who lived five blocks from my Granny, Joyce Hicks Rothdram, who had fled an abusive husband in Canada with her only child, Wendy, and moved with her sister and brother in law, my Auntie Lo and Uncle Bob, until she could save up enough to buy a tiny house near the Baton Rouge airport. In 1971 my dad was selling weed at Glen Oaks High School, and, as Judge JJ said, nine months later I was born.

I think I remember him Judge JJ, but the last time I would have seen him I was around seven years old, so I don’t rely on that memory. Google shows several Lottinger lawyers and judges in Louisiana, most of them related, and including one that was a state legislature in the early 1970’s and ending around the time Hoffa vanished. That matches my memory from ancedotal stories I’d hear over the years that the Judge JJ Lottinger I remembered had served Louisiana legislative law for 30 years under three governors trying to rid the state of Big Daddy. Governor McKeithen was the most vocal in news, so that’s where most of the records list Big Daddy. Apparently, Governor McKeithen pursuing Big Daddy through Judge JJ was a fractal version of President Kennedy pursuing Jimmy Hoffa through U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy.

Most of what’s online about my family is from those three governors trying to rid Louisiana of Big Daddy, especially Governor McKeithen, who was elected twice in the 1960’s, when Big Daddy was in full power. An article New Orleans State Times on 27 January 1968 says:

Partin Reign May be Short-Lived

Edward G. Partin, start witness in the trial of Jimmy Hoffa, is now reigning supreme over the Teamsters in central Louisiana.

‘I’m not going to have Partin and a bunch of hoodlums running this state,’ Gov. McKeithen told us. ‘We have no problems with law-abiding labor. But when gangsters raid a construction project and shoot men up at work I’m going to do something about it.

‘Partin has two Justice Department guards with him for fear Hoffa will retaliate against him,’ Gov. McKeithen said, ‘This gives him immunity.’

The governor referred to an incident in Plaquemine when 45 to 50 men shot up 30 workers of the W.O. Bergeron Construction Co.

“Baton Rouge has never has such a siege of labor violence as it’s seen since Partin came back from the Chattanooga trial with two Justice Department guards to protect him.”

In his book about Hoffa, Walter Sheridan talked about telling McKeithen to lay off prosecuting my grandfather, and national news would mock McKeithen for being bullied by Big Daddy. Despite the 1969 New Orleans Times prediction, Big Daddy continued to run Louisiana until Hoffa vanished, and that’s when Judge JJ stepped into the ring with both hands finally free to fight.

Looking back, hearing Wendy’s voice say: “I was scared, very confused. I didn’t know exactly which way to turn. I felt I had no one to listen and help with the situation at hand,” seems like a teenage girl’s understatement.

And, when I would learn in 2019 that she was dying of liver failure secondary to alcohol abuse, I wonder why Judge JJ would emphasize that she didn’t drink, even quoting my dad in a rare acknowledgement of his presence in the courtroom, putting down for posterity’s sake: Though the petition for separation had as one of its allegations “habitual intemperance”, the plaintiff in the instant proceeding testified that he had never accused his wife of drinking, nor had he ever seen her drink.“

Judge JJ avoided documenting his thoughts about my dad, who had just been released from jail without explanation. He had left Wendy and me to ride motorcycles to Miami with a group of his friends, and they took a boat to see a Bob Marley concert in Kingston before returning through Puerto Rico to pick up prodigious amounts of prescription opioids swiped from a new pharmaceutical manufacturing plant built with tax breaks to get American companies investing in the small island, a way to counter the growth of communism stemming from Cuba. Court records list confiscating the opioids, but don’t explain why he was released without a trial; though everyone knew it was because he was Edward Partin Junior. That’s also how he could navigate the Carribbean so effortlessly. After Hoffa went to prison based on Big Daddy’s word, Puerto Rico’s Teamster boss, Frank Chavez, another many coincidentally named Franks who were running Teamsters locals back then, was foolish enough to tell people: “I’m gonna fucking kill Ed Partin!” Chavez was shot and killed by his bodyguard soon after, and the new Teamster leader put in place never said a negative word about a Partin again. My dad would have had all the help he wanted in Peurto Rico, and even in Baton Rouge no one ever said anything negative about a Partin.

Years later, when I was a teenager living with my Uncle Bob, Wendy would explain why she started drinking, quipping that she was born WAR, but marring a Partin WARP’ed her, and that’s why she drank.

That pun would play over in my mind again and again the day I received the phone call that she was dying.

Like all news with Partins in it, there’s always more to the story, and that’s what I spent a lifetime wanting to share.

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