Out of Danger

Jackie Presser once seemed in imminent danger of going the same route as three of the five previous presidents of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters: being indicted for a federal crime. But after a three-year investigation of padded-payroll practices in Cleveland's Teamsters Local 507, where Presser, 58, serves as secretary-treasurer, the Justice Department said last week that it had overruled a recommendation by a federal organized-crime strike force in that city and would not prosecute the union boss. Although Presser 's was the only major labor organization to back Ronald Reagan for President in 1980 and 1984, the Justice Department insisted that this support did not affect its decision.

According to Justice officials, the case against Presser in Cleveland lacked "prosecutorial merit," meaning there was insufficient evidence to win a conviction. They also cited "outstanding law-enforcement considerations," a reference to Presser's role as a secret FBI informant providing tips on Teamsters-related crimes for at least eight years.

Two Senate committees have announced that they plan to investigate the Justice Department's handling of the case. Skeptical of the department's explanations, the Senators want to find out whether the bulky (300 Ibs.) Teamsters boss was given favorable treatment because of his political ties to the Administration. Presser was appointed a labor adviser to the Reagan transition team in 1980 by Edwin Meese, now the Attorney General. He was a frequent guest at the White House.

The Cleveland strike force, composed of investigators from both the Justice and Labor departments, had compiled a 100-page memo recommending that a grand jury be urged to indict Presser for allegedly putting "ghost workers" on the Local 507 payroll. The prosecutors had won convictions of or guilty pleas from two men: Allen Friedman, Presser's uncle, and John Nardi Jr. Evidence showed that from 1972 to 1981 the two were paid a total of some $275,000 by the Cleveland local without doing any work for it and that Presser had signed their paychecks. Friedman complained bitterly last week in a Fort Worth prison that he should be released if Presser is not jailed. Said Friedman to Cleveland's WJKW-TV: "I was the fall guy."

Senior federal officials told TIME that the decision not to prosecute Presser was made by Deputy Attorney General D. Lowell Jensen and Stephen Trott, chief of the Justice Department's criminal division. Both had earlier approved the strike-force decision to present the Presser evidence to the same Cleveland grand jury that indicted the other men. The two Government officials changed their minds after Presser's lawyers asked the department last month for a high-level review of the case. The FBI joined the review, saying that its program of protecting informers would be jeopardized if the Teamsters chief was brought to trial.

Sources close to the Teamsters investigation say they are convinced that tips from Presser to the FBI led to the conviction in 1982 of Roy L. Williams, Presser's predecessor as Teamsters boss. Presser's information concerned a meeting on Jan. 10, 1979, in the Nevada office of Howard Cannon, then a Democratic Senator, at which Williams offered Cannon a profitable land deal in exchange for his help in opposing a pending trucking deregulation bill. After being convicted of attempting to bribe a U.S. Senator, Williams resigned his Teamsters position. If these reports are correct, Presser used the FBI to get rid of Williams and thus help himself win the Teamsters presidency. Presser also turned informant, the sources believe, to protect himself against the very situation he has just faced: possible indictment. The FBI, according to some observers, asked the Justice Department to drop the Presser probe mainly to help conceal the embarrassing way in which the bureau had been manipulated by the Teamsters chief.

The Justice Department insisted last week that its boss, Meese, had taken no part in the decision on Presser. Although some sources contend that Meese had in fact verbally approved the non-prosecution, one former Justice Department official, a Democrat, doubts this. Says he: "Meese and Reagan aren't involved in this one at all. It was the FBI. If Presser ever went to trial, a lot of stuff the bureau is still working on would go up in smoke."