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Teamsters' investigator steps down

He accuses union of blocking efforts

By Stephen Franklin
Tribune staff reporter

April 30, 2004

The Teamsters' top internal investigator has resigned, charging that union officials thwarted his probes, especially those focusing on ties between organized crime and Chicago locals.

At least 20 members of the investigative staff resigned Wednesday along with Edwin Stier, a former federal prosecutor hired by the union four years ago to demonstrate that the Teamsters were cleaning house. Appointing Stier and his staff to fight corruption was intended to help ease the federal monitoring begun 15 years ago in a union long tied to the mob.

Stier said Thursday that as his investigators narrowed in on Chicago locals, they felt increasing pressure from Teamsters President James P. Hoffa's office.

"Rather than have the investigations continue," Stier said, union officials "literally stopped them."

Stier resigned Wednesday in a letter sent to Teamsters officials. The letter, obtained by the Tribune, provides only generalized descriptions of investigations.

The letter states: "Most of our recent investigative efforts have been concentrated in one metropolitan area where organized crime remains a serious problem in business and politics, and is a threat to the union."

In an interview, Stier identified the metropolitan area as Chicago but declined to offer further details.

The letter states that during the past several months "the pressure to undermine our efforts intensified." After the investigators finished their report 10 days ago, Stier learned his office was being shut down by Hoffa, the letter states.

"Based upon Jim Hoffa's reaction to our report, in which we made it clear that we have substantial reliable information that organized crime threatened the union, I have become convinced that my continued efforts and those of our investigators to create an anti-corruption program for the Teamsters Union would be futile," the letter states.

Officials from the 1.4 million-member union promptly denied Stier's claims, saying that the union rejected "the reckless and false allegations" about the Teamsters' commitment to fighting corruption.

The union, in a prepared statement, also said that Stier's resignation led to the "inescapable conclusion" that he did not want to answer questions about "the credibility and significance of uncorroborated allegations."

Likewise, the union said that it had hired Edward A. McDonald, another former federal prosecutor, to look into Stier's latest report on corruption among Chicago Teamsters' locals as well as Stier's charges that the union was covering up wrongdoing.

"We are disappointed at what Ed's done here," said Patrick Syzmanski, the union's general counsel. "I just think that Ed got too close to this and he lost some perspective."

The Teamsters have been under some form of federal supervision since making a deal in 1989 with the U.S. government. The government had described the union as tainted by wrongdoing and in the grips of organized crime.

Eager to put an end to the government's oversight, the union set up an anti-corruption project headed by Stier. It promoted the effort as a union-led investigative arm that would operate instead of the government-appointed investigators.

"I think that Hoffa's got a lot of explaining to do because they really hyped it a lot," said Ken Paff, an official with the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a small Detroit-based dissident group within the union.

Syzmanski, the union attorney, predicted that Stier's resignation would not set back efforts to ease federal supervision.

"Once they look at Ed's report and our reaction, they'll realize that we reacted responsibly," Syzmanski said.

Stier, who formerly headed New Jersey's Division of Criminal Justice, said that lawyers and investigators for his New Jersey based firm, who were doing the union's work, had concluded that Chicago's locals had the "highest concentration of problems."

He said one form of alleged corruption allegedly involves "mob-owned companies supplying non-union labor that essentially displaces Teamsters in various industries in Chicago."

In his resignation letter, Stier said that after his report was filed, Hoffa refused to meet with him and "surrounded himself with political consultants and lawyers."

Indeed, Stier predicted that Hoffa and some of his close, long-standing allies would likely be called to testify before the union's federal investigators.

To union officials, however, the problems with Stier's work began about six months ago when he started conducting investigations without the approval of Syzmanski.

"There were situations where he knocked on peoples' doors and questioned them when he hadn't been authorized to do so," Syzmanski said.

When Stier handed in his report on Chicago about 10 days ago to union officials, Syzmanski said it had "a lot of wild statements and it didn't clearly indicate where the evidence was."

Nonetheless, he said that the union turned over the report to U.S. Justice Department officials and the union's federal investigators.

Likewise, Syzmanski said that the union last week hired McDonald, a former federal prosecutor in New York, to review Stier's allegations and to consider whether union officials were carrying out their responsibilities. "Nobody is sweeping this under the table," he added.

In his letter to union officials, Stier said that his investigators had "substantial reliable information that organized crime again threatens the union."

A 639-page report produced by Stier two years ago claimed that only a few Teamsters locals were run by the mob and in most cases Teamsters were victims of the mob, not collaborators with it.

The union had used that report as part of a campaign to convince the government that the time had come to lessen its control over the union.

Since the start of anti-corruption project, the union has spent $15 million on the effort, $8 million of that money going to Stier's law firm, according to Syzmanski.