More Indictments Possible in Teamsters
Probe
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
May 3, 1998
NEW YORK -- The indictment of the Teamsters'
former political director, William Hamilton, is part of an investigation in which
prosecutors may seek indictments against more senior union officials and some
Democratic Party officials, lawyers involved in the case say.
On Monday, a federal grand jury in Manhattan handed up a six count
indictment charging Hamilton with perjury, fraud, embezzlement and conspiring to siphon
union money to the 1996 campaign of Ron Carey, the Teamsters president.
Several defense lawyers representing officials under investigation
said prosecutors apparently hope to pressure Hamilton into furnishing evidence against
Carey and other union and political officials to help strengthen the case against them.
Hamilton, who oversaw the Teamsters' lobbying and political
contributions, was forced to quit the union in July when he stopped cooperating with
prosecutors. His lawyer, Robert Gage, maintained in an interview that his client was
innocent.
The indictment describes a series of acts that it says Hamilton;
Jere Nash, Carey's campaign manager, and Martin Davis, Carey's chief fund-raiser, took to
illegally channel money to the campaign. The indictment pointed to several other officials who it said helped further the schemes, including Terence
McAuliffe, former finance director of the Clinton-Gore campaign, and Richard Trumka, the
AFL-CIO's secretary-treasurer.
Nash, Davis and a Carey campaign consultant, Michael Ansara, have
pleaded guilty to participating in the embezzlement scheme and have furnished much of the
evidence implicating Carey and Hamilton.
Mark Hulkower, a lawyer for Carey, insisted that his client knew
nothing about the embezzlement scheme. "They're obviously trying to squeeze Hamilton
and have been trying to do so for a long time," Hulkower said.
"Their whole case is based on the testimony of a convicted perjurer," he said in
a reference to Nash, "and other people trying to keep themselves out of jail."
Because of the embezzlement scheme, a federal election monitor
overturned Carey's 1996 victory over James Hoffa, while another monitor, after linking
Carey to the scheme, barred him from running again. Carey is on a leave of absence from
the union presidency.
On Monday, another federal monitor allowed Hoffa
to remain in the race, clearing him of accusations of major violations, while finding he
had engaged in some improprieties, like misreporting more than $40,000 in donations.
The indictment against Hamilton accuses him of
approving $735,000 in payments to Citizen Action and other liberal groups that used the
money for a get-out-the-vote effort to help the Democrats regain control of Congress in
1996. The indictment says that, in return for those contributions, the Carey campaign
received $185,000 in donations from rich donors who traditionally gave to those liberal
groups.
The indictment also describes a $150,000
contribution that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters gave to the AFL CIO, after
Trumka sent a letter to Hamilton requesting such a contribution. Trumka, the indictment
states, then had the AFL-CIO donate the $150,000 to Citizen Action, which gave $100,000 of
that money to a firm doing mass mailings for the Carey campaign.
Nicole Seligman, a lawyer for Trumka, has repeatedly declined to
comment on the investigation. Trumka, on the advice of counsel, has invoked his Fifth
Amendment right against self incrimination in refusing to testify before the grand jury
and a congressional committee.
The indictment also describes a swap scheme in which it says
Davis, the fund-raiser, suggested that Democratic Party officials request money from the
Teamsters: The Teamsters would donate money to the Democrats, and Democratic donors would
then give to the Carey campaign.
According to the indictment, McAuliffe sent a memo in June 1996
requesting that the Teamsters donate $250,000 to various state Democratic Parties, and
then a few days later Hamilton arranged for the Teamsters to donate $236,500 to the state
parties. Democratic officials then found a business executive to donate
$100,000 to Carey, but that donation was rejected because employers are barred from
donating to union candidates.
McAuliffe's lawyer, Richard Ben-Veniste, said his client was
cooperating fully with federal prosecutors and "has been advised that he has not been
a target of the investigation."
Richard Hess, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee,
added: "To the best of our knowledge, the DNC acted legally and appropriately."
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company