Who is jackie presser

Still, Presser deserves some credit for the product. He has significantly purged speech of profanity and malapropisms. He also has upgraded his wardrobe. As recently as he posed for publicity photographs in a dark-colored sports jacket and shirt and a light-colored tie.

Today Presser might pass for a business executive. A gold identifition bracelet and a pinky ring appear to be the only remains of his former tough-guy look. He is quite sensitive about the jewelry; in an outburst during the interview, Presser demanded that a photographer not take a picture of the hand with the ring. Presser is proud to have his photograph taken before his countless plaques and mementos -- possessions he refers to as medals.

One locked cabinet in Presser's office is filled with golfing trophies. Golf is almost his only mental and physical release from his heavy work schedule. Other than golf, sometimes in the company of such celebrities as former President Richard Nixon at the Teamster-financed La Costa spa, Presser's only hobbies are collecting coins and movies. For 20 years he amassed a gun collection, but gave it up.

He is most fond of talking about his to movies on video tape, some of which reportedly are X-rated and stored at Teamster headquarters. Rugged Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson are his favorite actors, although he enjoys musicals and once owned a copy of Deep Throat until a borrower ruined it. Much of Jackie Presser's life revolves around Teamster business -- day and night.

The time he spends away from home contributed to the breakup of his first marriage, which ended in divorce in , and there has been a great deal of strain on his marriage to his second wife, Carmen, who has twice filed for divorce.

Louis Babe Triscaro was for William Presser. Hughes and Presser became friends a decade ago while Presser was searching for an organizer. He's a very colorful guy and well known around town. It doesn't hurt to send him into a plant or to have him at the window [of Local ]," Presser said.

Hughes, a former Golden Gloves boxer who is rarely seen at the union hall, also functions in private business dealings for Presser. Presser says that because of his name he cannot buy property without the price being dramatically increased, and therefore he uses Hughes as a representative. Such was the case some years ago when Presser bought a home in Hughes's name.

In recalling the deal, Presser inadvertantly mentions, in the vaguest of details, arriving home one day to find the garage door slightly ajar. Suspicious, Presser checked the fuse box and discovered the wiring had been tampered with. He got someone knowledgeable about such things to inspect the house and was told that had he turned on the lights, the house would have exploded.

Nonetheless, Presser still insists he does not need a bodyguard. Nobody's shooting at me. But he does pack a handgun in a briefcase for protection. There is perhaps nothing more revolting to the new Jackie Presser than the portrayal of the Teamsters as baseball bat carrying goons and gangsters. Of course, the bombing death of mobster and Teamster official John Nardi in the Joint Council 41 parking lot certainly has not helped Presser's campaign to clean up his labor organization's image.

I've been denied a lot of things because I'm a labor official. Presser sips from a coffee mug with "Jackie" painted boldly on its side and talks of how unions are a lot different than how they were portrayed in the movie, On the Waterfront. I'm a statesman in the business community. I know every banker in this city by his first name I deal with the finest law firms, the highest grade accountants.

Presser is only fair at negotiating contracts and organizing, but he excels at planning innovative programs for Teamsters and drawing positive media coverage for such undertakings. Examples include two senior citizen retirement homes and a blood bank. I feel that the Teamsters local here is a model for the rest of the country," he says. Picking up a pen from his desk, Presser declares: "This is a hel!

While Presser still prides himself on being streetwise, he says he has learned one important lesson over the years: "You didn't have to prove to people that you were tough. You had to prove that you were smart. Although he does not read books and has lacked the time to enroll in manent courses, as suggested by Belamy and Halbin, Presser has a knack for using people as resources for knowledge. He boasts of turning himself into modern-day labor leader by studying Dunn and Bradstreet reports before deciding whether Local should organize a company or allow other union members to join it.

If it's a marginal business, why destroy it? While Presser may be denied some things because he is a Teamster, and denied acceptance among some of Cleveland's elite because he is Jewish, he is not denied money. So what? I can't be induced with bribes under the table. I can make million through the union," he says, explaining that all he has to do is set up couple more Teamster programs to increase his income legally,. Presser says he became a millionaire with the sale of the Front Row Theater to a company in Chicago that deals in vending machines.

Other business ventures over the years have not been so successful. Grandmother Matilda, Inc. A wine and spirits store in which Presser entered a partnership with Robert Moss of the Leaseway Corporation, one of the largest Teamter employers in Ohio, also went bankrupt.

Presser had hoped his daughter, Bari, would one day run the store. Presser still holds stock in Cleveland Commercial Auto and Truck Body, but has received no compensation from it in 12 years. Presser's children from his first marriage, Bari, 26, and Gary, 22, who is an employee of his father's local, also own shares of stock each in Bally.

The full extent of Presser's business holdings has not been revealed, although Carmen, the mother of two children from a previous marriage, once asked that such information be disclosed during a divorce action. Later, Presser talked her out of the divorce. Company representatives were trying to convince Las Vegas hotels to buy detergents from Alfa by threatening labor problems in Presser's name or by calling in Teamster loans.

The FBI also believed that Alfa, which has since become an instant-lighting-charcoal firm with a plant in Toledo, had been doing favors for public officials in California and for a governor of New Mexico to insure favorable supply contracts. In January of this year the New Mexico governor's Organized Crime Prevention Commission released a report saying former Governor Jerry Apodaca was an unwitting participant in Alfa's scheme, although it was pointed out that he did accept, on behalf of Shapiro and others, complimentary lodgings at Las Vegas hotels and casinos and free airline accommodati ons.

However, information gained from wiretaps was used to prosecute a group of persons who planned the bankruptcy of a plush, Las Vegas-style theater in New York state.

He has no control over that, but he was not involved," insists Presser's public relations adviser, Peter Halbin. While Presser denies any connection with Alfa, he does admit knowing Fratianno by reputation from years ago when Fratianno lived in the Collinwood area.

During the investigation of Alfa, Presser was notified by the FBI that one of his telephone conversations had been tapped. Presser said the caller was Fratianno and that Fratianno put someone on the line who inquired about detergents. Later, FBI agents visited Presser and reportedly assured him they were unconcerned about the call.

To Presser the telephone call was simply an example of Fratianno, whom he considers a hustler and a liar, throwing around his name. He also says Fratianno, who has admitted involvement in the Mafia killings of I I men, only wants to sell a book.

Nonetheless, Fratianno, who became a government witness after his arrest in on charges stemming from the bombing death of Danny Greene, is considered by the FBI to be its best insider on La Cosa Nostra activities since Joe Valachi. He was Presser died Saturday night of cardiac arrest at suburban Lakewood Hospital.

He had undergone surgery for brain cancer in May. Robert W. Presser had temporarily relinquished his union duties to Secretary- Treasurer Weldon L. Mathis before undergoing brain surgery. Presser rose to the presidency of the 1. At that meeting, the Teamsters were welcomed back into the union umbrella group after 30 years of exile on allegations that the union was influenced by corrupt forces.

Presser, who always denied ties with the mob, was known for a sometimes flamboyant personality. Despite this, Presser was elected President of the International Union in April, and was appointed labor advisor to President Ronald Reagan in return for the union's support of his presidential campaign. After their divorce in , Presser was briefly married to Elaine Goeble.

He and his 3rd wife Patricia, whom he married in , had a daugher Bari Lynn Joseph and a son Gary. They divorced in , and Presser married Carmen DeLaportilla.