The mystery as to where Jimmy Hoffa was buried, and the mystery as to what really happened to him, remains more than 30 years after he disappeared from a suburban Detroit restaurant parking lot. Now a retired law professor wants to add to the mystique by trying to unseal grand jury records in Hoffa’s jury tampering case.
By BILL POOVEY
Associated Press Writer
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — The government’s hard-won conviction of Jimmy Hoffa on jury-tampering charges is under assault 45 years later.
A retired law professor has persuaded a federal judge to consider unsealing secret grand jury records to set the historical record straight. William L. Tabac wants to prove his theory that the Justice Department – then led by Hoffa’s nemesis, Robert Kennedy – used illegal wiretaps and improper testimony to indict the Teamsters leader.
“I think there is prosecutorial misconduct in the case, which included the prosecutors who prosecuted it and the top investigator for the Kennedy Department of Justice,” Tabac said.
James Neal, the special prosecutor who convicted Hoffa in 1964 in Chattanooga, calls the claim “baloney.”
