To me, Sheeran — whom I had briefly interviewed for my book and who then threatened, in writing, to sue me for defamation after its release — was lying. I continue to insist that Sal Briguglio, not Sheeran, had performed the killing. To his credit, despite our disagreements, Shawn frequently included me in his filmed reports, using me as his designated contrarian. In fact, without Shawn, the movie The Irishman probably never would have been made.
During the summer of , Shawn offered me a consulting contract to work with Fox on a new angle of the Hoffa project, which I had originally developed five years earlier. Because I liked and trusted Shawn, I agreed to work with him personally, but I refused to either sign a contract with Fox or to accept any money from Fox — other than routine travel expenses, limited to train fares and hotel rooms, which Fox placed on its corporate credit card.
Unfortunately, the story Shawn and I were exploring soon became more complicated than expected, primarily because our key source refused to sign a sworn statement and failed to pledge full cooperation with the law enforcement community.
By this time, Frank Cappola had come into my life. Cappola was extremely upset because Fox had inconvenienced and embarrassed him. And I was upset with Fox for putting me in such an awkward position with Cappola. I had no contract with Fox, and, considering how badly Cappola had been treated already, I was not going to place him at the mercy of Fox News. I had interviewed him seven times by phone over the past three weeks, and, thus, I appreciated his true importance.
And I protected him as I would any of my prized sources. Cappola believed that Fox had so disrespected him that he refused to have anything to do with the network, cancelling an interview I had arranged between Cappola and Shawn for September 30, At one point, in the midst of an argument about Shawn, Cappola threatened to cease his cooperation with me.
In his subsequent hour-long report, broadcast on December 1, Shawn relegated Cappola to the final few minutes of his program. Cappola, who again felt disrespected, told me that he wanted nothing further to do with Fox. In response, Shawn sent me a harsh email, critical of my indiscreet comment. That led to an airing of grievances between us, culminating in a peace agreement.
As a quid pro quo, Shawn agreed to showcase my work about Cappola and PJP in his next broadcast report for Fox and to help my team publicize our project.
Shawn was so grateful for my invitation that he offered to arrange for Fox to pay for the GPR examination. In addition, a Fox producer boasted to Carson that Fox had connections in the New Jersey state bureaucracy that would make it unnecessary for us to obtain any written authorization for our visit to the site.
In the end, the Fox producer was wrong. So, with our team still allowing Fox to keep control, Beaux Carson walked the Fox producer through the process and introduced him to the key person in the state bureaucracy — with whom my team had already been in negotiations for several weeks. So, in addition, Fox needed to arrange for them to be cleared out before the GPR test could be conducted. However, the top Fox producer, who never spoke to me about the location, had arranged for the wrong area under the bridge to be cleared of steel dumpsters.
Because of this situation, I was badly shaken. I had everything riding on a successful outcome of the GPR review. If the search came up empty, regardless of the state of the site, I assumed that my project was dead — and that no one would be returning my phone calls.
And I showed them a video and still photographs of Cappola pointing to it. Further, we were not just looking for a single buried gallon drum. Rather, we were also looking for the 15 to 30 steel barrels, buried on top of the drum containing Hoffa.
Essentially, we were searching for a sheet of steel that would light up the GPR apparatus. The problem was that the clutter of dumpsters at the site was so tightly packed that in most places only one person could walk in the small spaces between them. It tells the story of his involvement, and his relationship with Hoffa, from his own point of view, which is why historians and critics are skeptical of how accurate this portrayed confession really is.
While the confession and description of how Sheeran killed Hoffa and what he did with Hoffa's body is skepticized to this day, the reason why Hoffa was targeted in the first place is not, and it goes back to the election of John F. Kennedy into the White House. Hoffa served as the Teamsters president from through The president appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy, Attorney General. Robert and Hoffa had a long-standing and well-documented feud. Kennedy's then-new position as Attorney General allowed the two to face-off even more intensely than before.
Although Bobby was no longer Attorney General following the assassination of his brother, Hoffa was still facing other charges and trials, particularly in Nashville. Eventually, Hoffa was sentenced to 13 years in prison under multiple convictions including jury tampering, fraud, and racketeering. Hoffa was sent to Lewisburg Federal Prison in Pennsylvania. While he was in prison, Hoffa's vice president Frank "Fitz" Fitzsimmons stepped in.
Hoffa was released from prison after almost five years on probation granted by the Nixon Administration.
The administration changed his sentence from 13 years to 6 and a half years, and Hoffa would serve the then-remaining year and a half under probation. The part of his post-prison life the film focuses on — and the part arguably most important to his disappearance — is that he wanted to reclaim his place on top of the Teamsters union. But, in Hoffa's absence, mobsters reportedly had formed a successful relationship with Fitz that they didn't want to change.
It's believed by historians that Mafia members wanted to continue working with Fitz. The theory continues on to say that Hoffa had too much information on the Mafia and its involvement with the Teamsters, and they wanted him dead so he couldn't reveal what he knew.
When police started to investigate Hoffa's disappearance, they found his car at the restaurant where he reportedly had a lunch planned with Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano of New Jersey and Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone of Detroit. Other historians and critics say the same. As a loose reiteration of Sheeran's account of what happened, the film hints at the cremation of Hoffa's body.
What interest did the White House have in Jimmy Hoffa? Recently declassified government files reveal shocking evidence of corruption at the highest levels. Discuss this story. This is a place for opinions, comments, questions and discussion; a place where viewers of History Detectives can express their points of view and connect with others who value history.
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