Hoffa's Hookers

The story was fantastic. As it was told, prostitutes had been provided for a panel of federal jurors trying a major case--and paid for by U.S. marshals. The judge had threatened to "get" the defendant. A U.S. marshal pranced about a hotel dressed in nothing but a woman's brassiere and panties. It was fantastic, that is, until one knew the author of the plot, who is a pretty fantastic fellow himself: Teamster Boss James Riddle Hoffa.

With an eight-year jail term for jury-tampering hanging over him (plus a five-year term for a mail fraud and conspiracy conviction), Jimmy Hoffa has recently been as nervous as a truck driver at a tea party. In an effort to avoid the clink, he is using the charges of prostitution and prejudice in asking that a new trial be granted in the jury-tampering conviction--the third such request since Hoffa was convicted*--and that the judge disqualify himself from further involvement in the case.

Spicy Recollections. With high moral indignation, Hoffa's lawyers went into Chattanooga Federal Court with affidavits from three prostitutes, describing their activities during Hoffa's seven-week trial in early 1964. The hooker with the most vivid memory was Marie Monday, 22, of Oliver Springs, Tenn., who told of meeting U.S. District Judge Frank W. Wilson twice during the trial at Chattanooga's Read House hotel, where the jurors were quartered. She accused Judge Wilson of no hanky-panky, but declared that at their second encounter, the judge told her that because he was "in charge of" the trial, Hoffa "is going to be convicted." Marie conveniently failed to explain how she and Wilson happened to run into each other at the Read House, identified him in her affidavit by circling a newspaper picture in black crayon.

Spicier recollections came from Bobbie Ann Sells, 22, and Patsy Jo Harris, 28, both of Chattanooga, both admitted prostitutes. Patsy said that she was called to the Read House by a bellhop during the trial. She went to the eighth floor by elevator, she said, where she met a "marshal" who walked her up the two flights to the jury's tenth-floor quarters. There she had intercourse with five of the jurors. She was paid a total of $100 by a bellhop, who told her that he got the money from "the marshal." At one orgy involving marshals, three jurors and two or three other girls, she recalled, a marshal, referring to Hoffa, said: "We've got the cocky little bastard now, right where we want him." Bobbie Sells swore that when she showed up after a call from a bellhop, a marshal told her to identify herself as a "lady marshal" if anyone asked why she was on the tenth floor with the jury. Both she and Patsy said that on one occasion they saw a marshal dancing, clad only in a bra and panties.

Scurrying FBI. Last week Judge Wilson overruled the disqualification motion in a scathing, ten-page opinion. Branding Marie Monday's affidavit as "a complete and total fabrication and fraud," he denied ever meeting her or even being at the hotel during the trial. Said he: "It is inconceivable that a sane and reasonable mind could believe that this court, during the course of this trial, would meet in a public facility with a self-admitted prostitute who was a total stranger, and make such expressions as she has sworn to. Surely a judge of the United States of America cannot be prevented by such patent perjury from performing his duty in accordance with the law."

The Government has until next week to file its brief against a new trial. Meantime, FBI agents have been scurrying around Chattanooga questioning everyone named in the affidavits. The Justice Department plans to ask a Tennessee federal grand jury now in session to investigate charges of "massive perjury" in connection with Hoffa's latest --and gamiest--bid to stay out of jail.

* The first, based partly on bellhops' testimony that they had seen "a lot of drinking going on" among the jurors, was denied March 1964. The second, in which Hoffa charged that the Government had planted a spy in one of his lawyers' offices, was denied last April.

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