The Friends of Jackie Presser

For eleven months, Allen Friedman has been in a Fort Worth federal prison, serving a three-year sentence for embezzling $165,000 as a nonworking "ghost employee" of Teamsters Union Local 507 in Cleveland, and nursing a powerful grievance. He was only "the fall guy," Friedman protested. The real culprit, he said, was Local 507's secretary-treasurer, Jackie Presser, who happens to be Friedman's nephew as well as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the nation's largest labor union, with 2 million members.

Friedman's attorneys have requested a new trial in U.S. District Court in Akron, contending that their client's defense was hampered when federal prosecutors withheld important evidence about Presser's role as an FBI informant on Teamsters-related crimes. In a surprising announcement last week, the Justice Department said it would rather dismiss all charges against Friedman than release sensitive documents on Presser's FBI ties. If Judge Sam Bell orders a new trial for Friedman this week, the convicted felon will be allowed to go free.

U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese defended the Justice Department decision to protect Presser even if it means springing Uncle Allen. "Nobody's tried to cover this up," he told the Washington Post. "If anything, the prosecution has shown that they have faced up to their responsibilities to the accused and the court." Earlier this summer, Presser himself escaped indictment on the ghost-employee case when Justice officials ruled that there was insufficient evidence to convict him. They also cited Presser's role as an informant.

Matters grew even more complicated last week when officials close to the investigation claimed that the FBI had authorized Presser's payments to Friedman and several other ghost employees at Local 507. Washington sources said the FBI reasoned that the phantom payoffs would make it easier for Presser to gather information on Cleveland's organized crime groups. Questions lingered over how much the FBI had told Justice about Presser's secret dealings. The bureau's Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating agents' handling of the affair.

Presser's immediate predecessor as Teamsters leader, Roy L. Williams, has not been as successful in eluding prosecution. Williams, who served as president of the union from 1981 to 1983, was convicted three years ago of attempting to bribe former Nevada Senator Howard Cannon in 1979 in return for the politician's help in opposing a trucking deregulation bill. Washington sources say that Presser was the Teamsters informant who first tipped the FBI to Williams' bribe offer. Last week Williams, 70, had his original prison sentence of 55 years reduced to ten years. He had pleaded for leniency because he suffers from severe emphysema and heart trouble.

However handsomely Presser paid his ghost employees, the ample (300 lb.) Jackie drew a far fatter salary. An annual review of the union's books by the dissident Teamsters for a Democratic Union revealed that Presser paid himself $755,474 last year. That is roughly $185,000 more than the 1984 salary of Chrysler Chief Lee Iacocca, and about ten times the salary of Owen Bieber, head of the United Auto Workers. The T.D.U. says 74 other Teamsters officials made more than $100,000 last year.