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by Cathy Scott
A SURPRISE GUEST AT A RECENT BOOK-SIGNING offered a real eye-opener for author
Charlie Brandt. The visitor listened as Brandt described a meeting that took
place in Detroit in July 1975, two days before Jimmy Hoffa disappeared.
"I was at that meeting," said Steven Weisberg, after he raised his hand and
Brandt gave him the microphone. "I found out tonight from listening to you that
I am the only person still living who attended that meeting."
Weisberg -- whose father, wealthy hotelier Herbert Weisberg, was good friends
with Hoffa -- once lived a few blocks from Teamster headquarters. Hoffa was boss
of the Teamsters at the time. Hoffa's son, James P. Hoffa, is now the Teamster
president.
The significance of that lunch meeting, Brandt explained to the audience, is
that it was one of the last times Hoffa was seen alive. Until the book-signing,
Brandt said he was not aware of the topic of that meeting.
"My brother, my father, me, Jimmy [Hoffa] and Mayor Coleman Young were there in
my father's apartment," Weisberg said. "The purpose for the meeting was to
discuss gambling in Detroit."
Weisberg, who recently moved to Las Vegas, said FBI agents interviewed his
family afterward. But the topic of the Hoffa meeting was never made public --
that is, until now.
"Law enforcement was gentle with us when they questioned us," Weisberg said. "It
might have been the fact that the mayor was there or that my family owned the
largest hotel in the state of Michigan at the time."
Weisberg went to the Reading Room at Mandalay Bay, where Brandt was discussing
his book "I Heard You Paint Houses," to meet the author.
The book purports to solve the mystery of who killed Hoffa three decades ago.
Mob soldier and hit man Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran confessed to Brandt that he
was the triggerman. "I heard you paint houses" were the first words Hoffa spoke
to Sheeran. "To paint a house is to kill a man," Brandt said. "The paint is the
blood that splatters on the walls and floors."
When Brandt was a criminal defense attorney representing Sheeran in an unrelated
case, Sheeran came close to confessing to killing Hoffa.
"He called me and we sat down," Brandt said. "His soul wanted to tell the truth.
[But] his body didn't want to go to jail."
So it would be another seven years before Sheeran fessed up and Brandt learned
the truth.
"Five hours later, I had 80 percent of what is in the book," said Brandt, who
splits his time between Delaware and Idaho. "There's often this basic need to
confess, and Sheeran had [the need]."
Both the FBI and Detroit police had named Sheeran as one of a handful of
suspects in Hoffa's disappearance. The media, as a result, pursued Sheeran for
years.
"Frank said to me, 'I'm tired of being written about,'" Brandt said. "I want to
tell my side of it, and I want you to tell it for me.'"
After Sheeran's confession, which was taped, Brandt published his book, a
biography of Sheeran. The book, which is now in paperback, aims to solve Hoffa's
disappearance and close the case. "This is the true story of what happened to
Jimmy Hoffa," Brandt said.
Sheeran confessed to shooting Hoffa twice, dropping the gun and leaving the
house near Detroit as "cleaners" -- Mafia men who rid crime scenes of evidence
-- put Hoffa's body in a bag. The body, Sheeran told Brandt, was taken within
minutes to a nearby mortuary and cremated.
What happened to the body's cremated remains is still a mystery.
Sheeran identified the cleaners as brothers Tom and Stephen Andretta, whose
names were listed by the FBI as suspects along with Sheeran. Tom Andretta, 68,
currently lives in Las Vegas. The Andrettas were never charged in connection
with Hoffa's disappearance.
Sheeran was in and out of prison until his death in 2004. He, too, was never
charged with Hoffa's disappearance or murder.
Officially, the Hoffa case remains unsolved. While authorities have not closed
the book on Hoffa, Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner for the city
of New York, has said that Brandt's account "is supported by the forensic
evidence, is entirely credible and solves the Hoffa mystery."
Cathy Scott is an author and freelance journalist based in Las Vegas.
