Hoffa's Hornswoggle

In all his brushes with courts, congressional committees, ethical practices committees and assorted reformers, Teamster Boss James Riddle Hoffa has earned a reputation as a thoroughly bad egg. But, curiously, even some of his critics pay him at least one grudging compliment: despite his many faults, they say, Jimmy Hoffa always takes good care of his Teamsters. Last week a federal grand jury in Florida leveled charges against Hoffa that, if proved, should smash forever the notion that he cares a hoot about the welfare of his union's members.

After examining evidence supplied by agents of the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service and the Post Of fice Department, the federal grand jury indicted Hoffa and two other men on twelve counts, charged them with misusing money from the Teamster treasury. According to the indictment, Hoffa, Henry Lower, former president of Detroit's Automobile Drivers and Demonstrators Local Union No. 376, and Robert E. McCarthy Jr., former branch manager of Detroit's Bank of the Commonwealth, took $500,000 out of the treasuries of the Teamster organizations in Detroit and deposited the money in a non-interest-bearing account in an Orlando, Fla. bank. The bank in turn lent money to Sun Valley, Inc.--a land development company of which Henry Lower is president. The company then bought up Florida lots at about $18 apiece, and with Hoffa's help began promoting the land as a haven for retired and aging Teamsters--selling the lots at prices ranging from $150 to $1,000. Customers were assured, continued the indictment, that the lots were "all on high, dry and rolling land," when in fact many were "so low and permeated with water as to make them unsuitable" for building. Thus rank-and-file Teamsters were high-pressured and hornswoggled into buying back, at inflated prices, the land that had been purchased with Teamster funds. At the same time, said the Florida grand jury, Hoffa and his pals were using Sun Valley profits for their personal benefit.

If convicted. Jimmy Hoffa could be fined as much as $1,000 and sentenced to five years on each of the twelve counts in a place that would at least be high, dry and habitable.

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