Judge JJ

But then came the killing shot that was to nail me to the cross.

Edward Grady Partin.

And Life magazine once again was Robert Kenedy’s tool. He figured that, at long last, he was going to dust my ass and he wanted to set the public up to see what a great man he was in getting Hoffa.

Life quoted Walter Sheridan, head of the Get-Hoffa Squad, that Partin was virtually the all-American boy even though he had been in jail “because of a minor domestic problem.”

– Jimmy Hoffa in his second autobiography, Hoffa: The Real Story, published just before he vanished from a Detroit parking lot in 1975

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 his three-page summary attached to Hoffa versus The United States, the 1966 U.S. Supreme Court Case that allowed my grandfather’s 1964 testimony to convict Jimmy Hoffa of jury tampering

If public records were bookends of my life with Wendy, one end would be her obituary; it was published by The Baton Rouge Advocate from 08 April to 09 April 2019. I condensed my mother’s life into a few sentences similar to how Martin Scorcese squeezed Big Daddy’s part in history into five minutes of film; this is what I wrote:

Wendy Rothdram Partin, a resident of St. Francisville, LA, passed way on Friday, April 5th, 2019 at the age of 63. Wendy attended Glenoaks High School in Baton Rouge, LA, and retired from Exxon Mobil. She is survived by her son, Jason Ian Partin, of San Diego, CA. She was preceded in death by her mother, Joyce Rothdram, and her aunt and uncle, Lois and Robert Desico, all of Baton Rouge, LA. During her retirement, she became a master gardener and enjoyed helping people with their lawns. She enjoyed cooking, and took food to anyone she knew who was ill or grieving. Wendy loved animals, and worked with local shelters to foster dogs until they found permanent homes. She passed away unexpectedly from liver failure. In lieu of gifts or a service, please spend time sharing what you love with your neighbor, listen to what they love, and help each other.

To plant trees in memory, please visit _____

The other bookend of our life together would be her divorce from my dad and the court records from their custody battle. The record that awarded my custody to Wendy is from 26 September 1976 and is an online record of the East Baton Rouge Parish 19th Judicial Court. The family court judge was Judge JJ Lottinger; I was told he stepped away from a 30 year career in Louisiana legislative law under three governors trying to rid the state of my grandfather the same way U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy worked under President Kennedy to rid America of Jimmy Hoffa. I have a vague, brief, fuzzy memory of Judge Lottinger; my lingering impression half a century later is he was trustworthy and had a kind smile and told me to call him Judge JJ.

Judge JJ had replaced the trial judge who had removed me from Partin custody died of alleged suicide; though not mentioned in the report, he was Judge Pughe (pronounced in the Cajun French accent as Puh-Yew, like a sound you’d make when reacting to a bad odor). Like judges in most court reports, Judge JJ detailed the logic of why he reversed Judge Pughe’s decision and he cited precedent cases to support his opinion; his notes in my court records are for posterity to ponder and similar to how in 1966 Chief Justice Earl Warren documented his thoughts on my grandfather’s testimony. In hindsight after Wendy died from liver failure, when I reread my custody ruling it’s interesting that Judge JJ focused on whether or not Wendy drank alcohol; according to court records and my dad she did not, so maybe she was right when she quipped that marrying a Partin drove her to drink and led to her untimely death in 2019 at the young age of 63.

This is what judge Judge JJ had to say about Wendy and me in 1976:

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.

Like how Hoffa appealed Big Daddy’s testimony and spent two years fighting all the way to the U.S Supreme court before loosing, both my dad and foster family appealed Judge Lottinger’s decision and I languished in the foster system like Big Daddy had languished in a Baton Rouge jail cell. During this time my memories begin to form, and they coalesce around all of the people in Judge Lottinger’s report. I’ll start that narration in the next chapter; for now, I’d like to bring you up to speed on what Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote about Edward Grady Partin Senior and how that ended up with Judge Pugh removing me from Partin physical custody yet inexplicably keeping me in the legal custody of Edward Grady Partin Junior.

Chief Justice Earl Warren was the only one of nine supreme court justices to vote against using Big Daddy’s testimony to convict Hoffa in a case that was daily news fodder for America. Warren was already internationally known by the time of Hoffa versus The United States in 1966; he was Chief justice from 1953 to 1969 and oversaw landmark cases like Row versus Wade that legalized abortion; Brown versus the Board of Education that ruled separate but equal schools for African Americans was acceptable; and the case that led to The Miranda Rights being read to anyone arrested ensuring they know they have the right to remain silent and the right to a public defense attorney; but in 1966 he was most known as lead investigator of the 1964 Warren Report that was hastily assembled in the months following President Kennedy’s assassination and erroneously concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed Kennedy on 22 November 1963, and that Jack Ruby acted alone when he shot and killed Oswald two days later.

Bobby Kennedy chose to have Big Daddy reveal himself as the mole inside Jimmy Hoffa’s camp in 1964, just after the Warren Report was released. Big Daddy had been reporting what he saw and heard in Hoffa’s camp to the head of Bobby Kennedy and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s 500 agent Get Hoffa task force; that force was so well known during Bobby and Hoffa’s Blood Feud that journalists called it “the most expensive, fruitless effort to convict one man in the history of any government.” Big Daddy’s contact was the Get Hoffa task force leader, Walter Sheridan, a respected FBI agent, WWII Navy veteran, and eventual investigative journalist for NBC. Big Daddy had told Warren that in 1961 Jimmy Hoffa implied he give $20,000 to a juror in a minor state-level labor union trial centered around Hoffa’s Test Fleet of trucks owned under his wife’s name; that trial was one of many Bobby Kennedy orchestrated every year to burden Hoffa and Hoffa had gotten used to the interruptions and conducted Teamster business from his hotel rooms in between courtroom sessions. All day every day, Teamsters and mafia families and Hoffa’s attorneys came in and out of his room. Big Daddy was there all along, listening to everything being said and reporting back to Warren, who had FBI agents all over town and reported to both Hoover and Bobby daily. When I’ve tried to describe what Big Daddy was like both physically and mentally, I ask people to envision a man big and strong and fearless enough to serve as the guard to Hoffa’s door against America’s most brutal strong-men and murders, men like Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and other hitmen who would become famous in movies.

In his written record of dissent Chief Justice Warren focused on Big Daddy’s role as a trusted confident to Hoffa, quoting Hoffa’s defense in admitting that “Partin was in the suite ‘virtually every day’ as well as the ‘nightly meetings,’ had ‘ready access’ to the files and offices and acted as ‘sergeant-at-arms’ just outside the door of the suite.”

Warren’s three page missive attached in perpetuity to 1966’s Hoffa versus The United States for posterity to ponder rails against Big Daddy; Warren uses the name Partin 148 times in those three pages to illustrate my grandfather’s criminal records and incentives to perjure in the 1962 Test Fleet Case; there’s no mistaking that Warren viewed Big Daddy as something scraped off the heel of justice, but as Chief Justice for a case that will be cited by future courts Warren emphizes that not only is Big Daddy disreputable (and, Warren reminds his fellow justices emphatically, simultaneously on charges in another court for perjury) but using any witness’s testimony in the circumstances of Hoffa versus The United States violated the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, specifically the 4th and 6th Amendments. The 4th Amendment was hand-written by founding father’s in the late 1700’s to protect Americans against illegal search and seizure of their property by an oppressive government; it says:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Warren cited other supreme court cases relevant to Hoffa and said: “A hotel room can clearly be the object of Fourth Amendment protection as much as a home or an office,” and “the protections of the Fourth Amendment are surely not limited to tangibles, but can extend as well to oral statements.”

To address that the 4th Amendment requires probable cause and describing what is to be searched or seized, Warren emphasizes that Big Daddy was not given specifics or a probable cause: what Walter Sheridan and the Get Hoffa Task Force asked Big Daddy to do: “Pursuant to the general instructions he received from federal authorities to report ‘any attempts at witness intimidation or tampering with the jury,’ ‘anything illegal,’ or even ‘anything of interest,’ Partin became the equivalent of a bugging device which moved with Hoffa wherever he went.

In other words: Big Daddy was an illegal wire tap without probable cause, specifics of what is to be searched, or a judge’s warrant.

Warren pointed out that Big Daddy’s word as a witness against Hoffa also violated the verbose 6th Amendment, which details the right to have an attorney present and for a defendant to cross-questions witnesses; part of the reason for that is to prevent a charming mole from coaxing words out of someone they’re monitoring and then use those words against them. (Imagine if every time you said something among friends – even when just venting after a frustrating day or laughing over a few drinks and speaking mindlessly – you could be sentenced to prison for what you say in a shared conversation that takes a life of its own based on who is with you.) When I describe Big Daddy’s charm, I use the example that even Jimmy Hoffa so deeply trusted him for years that even when Hoffa suspected a mole in his camp, he was so surprised when Big Daddy stood up as the surprise witness that Hoffa’s typically stoic face paled and his strong jaw dropped and, in front of the jury that would soon convict him, exclaimed: “My God! It’s Partin. Big Daddy was so charming that the jury listened to him and trusted him and only took four hours to believe his word over the denial by Hoffa. To this day we’re sure Hoffa did influence jurors many times; but it’s not known how much Big Daddy influenced him during the Test Fleet to coax out the words used to convict Hoffa in 1964.

Despite the obvious violation of the 4th and 6th amendments Hoffa was sent to a New Jersey federal penitentiary based solely on Big Daddy’s word; as Warren said: “…without Partin, who was the principal government witness, there would probably have been no convictions here.” Because of the focus on Big Daddy instead of the 4th Amendment, Hoffa’s army of attorneys began attacking Big Daddy’s character in an attempt to overthrow the conviction even after his appeals failed; or, at the least, to tell America more about Big Daddy and how Bobby Kennedy must have influenced the supposedly blind supreme court. In his first autobiography, penned from prison in his fist year, Hoffa summarized Big Daddy like this:

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 crimes were whitewashed and some records vanished as cleanly as Jimmy Hoffa from a Detroit parking lot. I never found evidence of him working with Fidel Castro, though the rape charge is still on record in the Woodville Mississippi courthouse and was downplayed in Life magazine as false from a local pimp who wanted to make Big Daddy look bad. The kidnapping charges that landed Big Daddy in jail and facing a decade in prison before he became a mole were when he helped a young Baton Rouge Teamster named Sidney Simpson kidnap his two toddler children from their mother after a disputed custody settlement; the alleged kidnapping was dismissed from court and downplayed in Life magazine as “a minor domestic problem” that Hoffa would use “bunny ears” to sarcastically describe for the rest of his life. Hoffa, like every judge on the supreme court and most of America by the time Hoffa went to prison, had read what Simpson said about sharing a jail cell with Big Daddy and what he said about getting Hoffa; Chief Justice Earl Warren ensured Simpson’s testimony was documented in his missive against trusting my grandfather’s word against Hoffa:

“On one occasion I asked Partin if he knew enough about Hoffa to be of any help to Daniels and the FBI, and Partin said, ‘It doesn’t make any
difference. If I don’t know it, I can fix it up.'”

And:

“While we were in the cell, I asked Partin why he was doing this to Hoffa. Partin replied: ‘What difference does it make? I’m thinking about myself. Aren’t you thinking about yourself? I don’t give a damn about Hoffa. . . .”

In his 1972 opus The Fall and Rise of Jimmy Hoffa, Walter Sheridan ignored Simpson’s testimony and summarized the long list of charges against Big Daddy after they were whitewashed or vanished by saying this:

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.

Despite the public knowing how obviously disreputable Big Daddy was, the charges against Hoffa remained and Big Daddy returned to running the Baton Rouge Teamsters, now under federal protection personally overseen by J. Edgar Hoover. Newspapers reported Louisiana governor McKeithen’s frustrations about Big Daddy returning to Louisiana immune to prosecution. On 27 January 1968 the New Orleans State Times published:

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.”

Newspapers covered McKeithen’s fruitless attempts to rid Louisiana weekly. Baton Rouge was – and is – the capital of Louisiana, and McKeithen’s office was near Teamsters local #5 and reporters had easy access to everything that happened. A series of quotes tells what happened:

“These [Baton Rouge Teamster] hoodlums make Marcello and the Mafia look pretty good.”

And:

“[We’re going to arrest Partin] as soon as we get the evidence against him.”

But:

McKeithen is Warned to ‘Lay Off’ Partin

“Gov. John J. McKeithen reportedly received suggestions last month during a trip to Washington not to press the state Labor-Management Commission’s investigation of Baton Rouge Teamster Boss Edward G. Partin.”

“McKeithen said he met with [Walter] Sheridan, who is now an investigator for the National Broadcasting Company, to allay any suspicion that his motives in pressing the Baton Rouge labor investigation were to get Hoffa Free.

The governor said that the meeting was pre-arranged on a mutual basis, with each desiring to talk with the other. He said that Sheridan was a focal point of persons in the Justice Department and “national magazines” interested in seeing that Hoffa is not released.”

“The governor said he felt the recent series of Life Magazine articles on organized crime in Louisiana and the alleged bribe offers to free Hoffa were promoted by Partin. Since then, he said, Life Magazine has placed full confidence in him.”

Concluding in:

“Walter, get him out of my state. Now listen to what I am saying to you. Just get him out of my state. I’ll help you do it and I’ll give him immunity. You write it up and I’ll sign it. Just please get him across that state line.”

Walter compromised; though only known to our family, he arranged for Big Daddy to have a hunting cabin in the Coconino national forest surrounding Flagstaff; every year during Elk season Big Daddy would take his hunting knife and long-range 30-06 rifle and disappear for a few months, but he always returned and he still ran Local #5 and the state of Louisiana despite Governor McKeithen saying he wouldn’t allow it. Judge Lottinger had worked under McKethen for eight years and had been focused on finding a way to evict Big Daddy from Louisiana, so I assume that when Judge Pughe died and Lottinger transferred from legislative to family law he knew the name Edward Grady Partin well.

In addition to documenting that Wendy didn’t drink, it’s interesting to me that Judge JJ focused on Wendy’s morals and efforts to find work and a rent a “fine” home for us, but he barely mentions my father. At the time, my dad was as immune to prosecution as Big Daddy because of either the fear or laissez-faire attitude most Louisiana judges had when they heard the name Edward Grady Partin. Judge JJ detailed Wendy’s abandonment of me, but did not mention that my dad had been inexplicably released from jail after being arrested with a truckload of prescription opiods obtained from some undisclosed island in Latin America, and that he had abandoned both Wendy and me to go get them. Nor did he mention any of the criminal history of the Partin family; his sympathies focused on Wendy and “the welfare of the child,” which was me.

Knowing what I know now, I look back at the bookends of my life with Wendy I see an understatement in Judge JJ’s assessment of her triumphant battle against my father; I can hear her soft, timid voice telling him: “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.”

I don’t know what Walter Sheridan meant when he wrote that Big Daddy “forcibly” installed Jimmy Hoffa’s man into power, but I knew my grandfather and have read enough history to believe that whatever my mother experienced in her custody battle against the Partins it probably was more than she could handle as a teenage girl, and that led her to abandon me. And with so much of my family history classified, not even Judge JJ would have known the whole story or known the depth of fear she must have felt.

As for why Bobby Kennedy chose the 1964 trial against Hoffa to expose Big Daddy’s two years of spying on Hoffa, I believe it had to do with growing evidence or suspicion that Hoffa was involved in President Kennedy’s 1963 assassination. Bobby was the U.S Attorney Genral and the president’s brother; J. Edgar Hoover and all of the FBI reported to Bobby, and he had access to the highest levels of national security and had been monitoring Hoffa for years; if he could have proven Hoffa’s involvement in the president’s murder, I assume he would have pursued that route and either life in prison or the death penalty for Hoffa. Instead, Bobby took Big Daddy’s word that Hoffa had suggesting bribing a juror in a minor state-level case; jury tampering is a felony, and Bobby knew that Hoffa would probably get at least eight years in federal prison and lose power over the Teamsters. As an FBI agent reminded Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and Frank repeated in his memoir, Chicago gangster Al Capone went to prison for tax evasion, not the long list of theft and murders the FBI could never prove; throughout history, many notorious targets of government pursuit have slipped on relatively minor crimes and gone to prison rather than the government continue expensive and fruitless investigations into major crimes. I believe Bobby risked his most valuable mole inside Hoffa’s camp and took a chance with the case being thrown out for illegal surveillance and violation of the 4th and 6th amendment when asking Big Daddy to find “anything illegal” or “anything of interest” because he was known to adore his brother and had a reputation for quick anger and rash actions; he saw an opportunity and took a risk and won.

From his prison cell in 1968, Hoffa celebrated Bobby’s assassination during his presidential campaign by the redundantly named Serhan Serhan and began plotting his release now that Bobby wasn’t around to keep him incarcerated. He was only allowed visitors once every three months and chose his close circle of attorneys and Teamster leaders, like Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran. Frank wrote that Hoffa talked about Big Daddy every time, and that no effort to get him to change his testimony was working. Soon after Bobby’s assassination, Time magazine published a six-issue series on organized crime and focused one issue on Big Daddy refusing a million dollar bribe from New Orleans mafia boss Carlos Marcello to change his testimony and free Hoffa; Life reported that the mafia was trying free Hoffa so they’d have access to the $1.1 Billion pension fund Hoffa still controlled; Big Daddy was smiling and defiant and refused to change his word.

In 1971 Hoffa sent word to incumbent president Richard Nixon that he’d give millions of dollars from the Teamster pension fund that he still controlled for Nixon’s reelection campaign and offer his endorsement of almost 3 million voting Teamsters who still followed Hoffa’s word; that would become the first time the Teamsters endorsed a republican candidate, and it led to President Nixon commuting Hoffa’s sentence and Hoffa walking out of prison on 31 December 1971, but under the condition that he stay out Teamster business for eight years unless Hoffa could convince Big Daddy to change his testimony and nulify Hoffa’s conviction, or somehow prove that Bobby and Hoover had conducted illegal wiretapping or some other offense that would also result in nullifying Hoffa’s conviction and negating Nixon’s restrictions so that Hoffa could resume power.

Wendy met my dad and lost her virginity to him later that night at a New Years Eve party, and that’s how ten months later I became a small part in history.

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