CHUCKIE

Charles “Chuckie” O’Brien is a key person involved with the disappearance of James R.

Hoffa (JRH). Of all the “Cast of Characters” listed in the Hoffex Memo, it is O’Brien that is linked to the forensic evidence discovered in a maroon 1975 Mercury Marquis, he happened to be driving on the day Hoffa went missing.  Authorities conducted a search of the car in question. Trained police dogs detected Hoffa’s scent in the back seat and trunk.  The evidence consisted of hair and small traces of blood collected from the interior of the vehicle. In 2001, through DNA analysis, the evidence was determined to belong to the missing Jimmy Hoffa. In 1975 it was discovered the car belonged to Joseph Giacalone, the son of Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone. It was “Tony Jack” along with Anthony“Tony Pro” Provenzano, Hoffa was to meet with at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant North of Detroit, Michigan on the day he disappeared. Investigators located this car and added it to evidence. It was not long afterward they determined Chuckie O’Brien was the driver of this vehicle. O’Brien told authorities he had borrowed it to deliver a large frozen salmon to Robert Holmes, the president of Teamsters local 337 and Central States Pension Fund Trustee.  He has, to this day, denied seeing Hoffa or having picked him up for his last ride.  

 

There are researchers and investigators who object to O’Brien being a suspect to any of these events.  However, those objecting forget that, O’Brien had been spending a lot of time with the Giacalones who were a prominent La Cosa Nostra Mafia family in Detroit. Unfortunately, even though the 1975 Mercury Marquis contained evidence tying O’Brien, the Giacalones, and Jimmy Hoffa together, it was not long for some “hoffaologists” to minimize it’s importance to the case.  We think it’s a mistake to exclude O’Brien from any workable hypothesis.  As was already said, Tony Giacalone was one of the men Hoffa was to meet with that day.  Secondly, O’Brien was a longtime friend of the Hoffa family.  His parents had been close friends with the Hoffa family for many years. Most important, he confessed to driving the car on that day.  

 

Chuckie O’Brien literally grew up around the Hoffa’s. His mother was Sylvia Pagano, also known as Sylvia Paris.  Chuckie's father, was identified as Sam ("The Binger") Scaradino of Kansas City. This man  was associated with the Kansas City Mob. If true, it would make Chuckie  O'Brien 100% Italian.  Many historian's have chronicled that Sam Scaradino used the name O'Brien when he was a prize fighter earlier in his life. His son, Charles assumed the O'Brien name rather than the Scaradino name. (Source information  from the FBI Vault, Biographer Arthur Sloane, and numerous  publications).

 

However, another story emerged in 2019 from one of Chuckie's stepsons.  The conflicting report states his real father was someone else going by the same name, "Charles Lenton O'Brien Sr." .  This latest rendition still includes that this previously unknown  man was also associated with the Sicilian mob in Kansas City and did the exact same things Sam Scaradino was known to  have done.  Since the stepson's confusing opinion is included in O'Brien's obituary, there are now those automatically excepting the report as the final truth of the matter. It certainly makes it difficult to really know who was Chuckie O'Brien's father.  One publication, we note, made a reference to a possible father that was in the picture even before the time of Scaradino.  So, the entire matter is unclear and now has become even more ambiguous.  The research reveals that issues like this are consistent with much of what Chuckie O'Brien said and did during his life.  He seemed to have great difficulty getting any of his stories straight. Many people who knew Chuckie O'Brien felt he was not someone who could be relied upon to tell the truth. His life seemed like a steady stream of conflicting and contradicting tales resulting in a collective distrust of any of his accounts.  The story gets more complicated with how O'Brien is linked to Jimmy Hoffa.   

 

Many reports seem to agree that one man listed as Chuckie's fathers died when he was very young. His mother Sylvia had  moved to Detroit and often traveled back and forth between there and Kansas City. It appears she would often leave young Chuckie under the care of others during her absences.   In the early 1930s she met Jimmy Hoffa. She was involved with Hoffa before he had married his wife Josephine in 1936.  Ms. Pagano introduced Hoffa to many people attached to organized crime. One such person was Frank Coppola.  Frank was a well connected underworld figure who became Chuckie's Godfather.  It is reported Coppola started seeing Ms. Pagano after Hoffa ended his relationship with her and began seeing his eventual bride Josephine Poszywak.  Later on, the Hoffa's took Sylvia Pagano and her boy Chuckie into their own home.  As time went on, O'Brien's mother Sylvia became romantically connected  with Detroit LCN's Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone. Thus Jimmy Hoffa became a surrogate father to Chuckie and Anthony Giacalone became "Uncle Tony."

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So, Historically O’Brien had been as close to the Hoffas as any one was, even to the point of living with the Hoffa family.  Interviews with Jimmy Hoffa’s family indicate originally O’Brien, since the age of seven, had been around the Hoffas and by age nine he lived with them in Hoffa's home.  He was treated as part of the family as he grew into adulthood.  Some accounts vary, but this relationship seemed to continue on and off during  his mother's marriage to her second husband John Paris.  Of course, the rumors that Chuckie O’Brien’s mother was once romantically involved with Jimmy Hoffa  resurfaced from time to time giving some people the impression that Chuckie could be Hoffa's biological son. Nothing as of yet supports such a conclusion. But, hearsay rumors also pointed to Sylvia becoming  involved with Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone in an later affair while she was married to John Paris.  Paris apparently died in 1957. What we can gather from all this fanfare is that Jimmy Hoffa and Chuckie O’Brien shared a long and very close history together  with "Uncle Tony Jack".  So, really, it is not difficult to conclude that Hoffa would be willing to catch a ride with O’Brien and other expected people in a familiar car in order to meet Anthony Giacalone for a pre arranged meeting in 1975.  This would especially be the case since the familiar car O’Brien was driving belonged to Giacalone’s son. 

 

As Chuckie got older, he became deeply involved with Teamster Union activities and often accompanied Jimmy Hoffa in his travels.  It is documented by reliable sources, Chuckie O’Brien made a number of poor decisions while involved with the Teamsters assignments he was given. However, he was often granted a great deal of latitude by Jimmy Hoffa himself.  It appears this relationship allowed O’Brien more leeway than most other people would have received from Hoffa even if they were not seeing things eye to eye.  Whether Chuckie O’Brien admitted it or not, he owed a lot to Jimmy Hoffa. 

 

The story persists with some who continue to believe because Jimmy Hoffa stated O’Brien was “like a son to him” and for a time had actually lived with the Hoffa family, that he was legally Hoffa’s "foster son".  In reality, O’Brien was listed as a relative of the family in order to chauffeur and accompany Mrs. Josephine Hoffa back and forth to the federal prison in Lewisburg on “family” visiting days.  They had fabricated he was Hoffa’s actual foster son so that his wife Josephine could comfortably enter the visiting area inside the prison with an escort in whom the Hoffa’s trusted.  Chuckie also escorted JRH during the Test Fleet Trials leading up to Hoffa’s imprisonment in 1967.  As was portrayed in a recent motion picture; O'Brien brutally attacked a man who had tried to cause harm to Hoffa in a court room drama.  Chuckie defended his surrogate father as the crazed individual used a type of air gun, shooting and hitting Hoffa in front of dozens of witnesses.  It would take something like this event  to become a catalyst to  create a lasting bond between O'Brien and Hoffa.  O'Brien's stepson seems to have brought that relationship to the surface for public examination.  One can get a sense that this bond remained intact even during the alleged disagreements related to O'Brien's aspirations with Jimmy Hoffa over their  own future desires within the Teamsters Union.  

 

Because of their many years together and the likelihood of Jimmy Hoffa’s need to restore relationships with his once trusted allies, we believe O’Brien can not be excluded from the narrative. His part in the plan may have been to pick up Hoffa and drive him to the supposed meeting site. He may have not known what would happen after doing so, but would have quickly learned of it and possibly panicked. Or, he may have known about the plan and cooperated due to external pressure coming from the others involved. Another fact to consider is O’Brien’s behavior reported by the Hoffa family immediately after the disappearance.  James Hoffa Jr. went on record and shared publicly some of these details. The Hoffa’s believed O’Brien knew something and was hiding it .  It ends up by O'Brien's own admission they were right about this. We know it is a fact that Charles Chuckie O’Brien was operating back and forth between the  LCN Giacalones and those close to Jimmy Hoffa.  All of these reasons combined, lend to the conclusion that O’Brien was involved in some way.  

 

From what is known about him, Chuckie O'Brien strictly adhered to the LCN's "Omerta" code.  On several occasions it appeared he would have to have known some details , but vowed he would never divulge such secrets.  It was most likely the Omerta code and his tight relationship with the Giacalone family, along with "Tony Jack's" earlier involvement with Chuckie's mother Sylvia, that kept him alive for so many years.  Mob attorney Frank Ragano learned these facts about O'Brien and his part in the scenario from Mafia kingpin Santo Trafficante shortly before he died. Trafficante was considered the wheelhouse man based in Tampa for the major LCN families doing business in Florida and Cuba. He supposedly informed Ragano, all that was required of Chuckie was  for him to drive Joseph Giacalone's car to the Machus Red Fox restaurant with other occupants Hoffa would expect, and take them to a pre arranged peace meeting.  He let Ragano know that the old man " Marteduzzo", (Trafficante's name for Jimmy Hoffa), would not have a problem getting into one of Giacalone's cars especially if O'Brien was driving it.  Hoffa would know all the occupants and not suspect any foul play.  It is likely that Chuckie only had to drive the car to a very familiar place just a few minutes away from the restaurant parking lot where Hoffa had parked his own car. The planners of the hit according to Trafficante required O'Brien's participation because of these details. Tony Jack Giacalone traveled to Florida to meet with Tony Provenzano at Joe Sonken's Gold Coast restaurant in Miami.  They went over the details of the plan, and according to some mob sources,  this was when Trafficante warned Giacalone: " if O'Brien talks, then he dies".  Tony Jack had given his assurances that Chuckie would never talk.  It seems Chuckie O'Brien was aware of the peace meeting beforehand and probably had no other suspicions himself.  He was led to believe the ongoing feud between New Jersey Local 560 leader Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano and Hoffa was going to be finally settled. It's entirely possible he hoped to have the future chance to be at better terms with his surrogate father too, especially if Hoffa was in fact reaching out to mend some fences with his rival LCN and IBT associates.  We believe after Hoffa was driven to the site of his murder Vito  William "Billy Jack" Giacalone and other's took possession of his nephew's joey's car and Chuckie O'Brien was left to find another ride. O'Brien provided information that he  eventually caught up with industrialist Marvin Adell  as well as others listed in the Hoffex Memo later that day.

 

There is good evidence for these ideas too.  Hoffa files indicate that the day after Hoffex suspect Salvatore Briguglio was gunned down in New York, the FBI conducted a search of his residence on March 22, 1978 and discovered a private unlisted telephone number that belonged to Chuckie O'Brien. Further, this same number was recorded on telephone calls from  IBT local 560, the Provenzano's teamsters local,  to this same number belonging to O'Brien several weeks before Hoffa vanished.   As far as Hoffa’s own car, a green Pontiac, it was discovered parked near the Machus Red Fox Restaurant. As already stated; eye witnesses described the other car Hoffa got into belonging to the Giacalones.  There were no signs or reports of a forced or violent abduction at the scene. (Another reason to include O’Brien). The FBI made several attempts to duplicate the movements of O'Brien on the day Hoffa vanished, using the time and places O'Brien provided to the agents, but the recreations always finished with 60 to 90 minutes to spare. Even if he had only 5 minutes to spare, he could have picked up Hoffa and delivered him to the suspected murder house. O'Brien was seen at the restaurant and descriptions from eye witnesses matched with the person driving the car. Even though some of the eye witness testimony given was deemed questionable, some of it was found to be credible too. So with some of the newer opinions making the attempt to clear Chuckie from any attachment to the Hoffa disappearance, it appears unlikely they hold enough credibility considering the above evidence stated.  FBI Agent Robert Garrity, the author of the original Hoffex Memo, (The Official document summarizing the first 6 months of the investigation of Hoffa's disappearance) still stands by his conclusions according to a previous referenced source.  Findinghoffa.com encourages our readers and listeners to read this 56 page report made available on our website. Chuckie O'Brien is mentioned more frequently than most of the other names contained within it's pages.

 

O’Brien was involved with the Teamsters for many years. Jimmy Hoffa purchased land in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with profits from the Test Fleet Company (Organized for Hoffa and Owen Brennan in the late 1940s by the two owners and CEOs of a trucking company then of Flint, Michigan called “Commercial Carriers”.  Their names are recorded in the U.S. Congressional Records as Walter F. Carey, President, and Bertram B. Beveridge, Vice President of the company).  Hoffa later sent  Chuckie up to this remote area property to supervise the construction of a Hunting Lodge/Teamsters ‘get away’ place, called the “Lake 13 Hunting and Fishing Lodge”.  This place is documented in the McClellan Hearings of the 1950s and the Test Fleet trials of the 1960s. Chuckie was well acquainted with Hoffa's dealings involving these properties and their connections in the U.P. of Michigan.  O'Brien had also accompanied JRH to his cabin close by on Tepee Lake.

 

It was many years afterward O’Brien became disenchanted with Hoffa and began to join with anti Hoffa people. At some point in  the early 1970s, after Hoffa's sentence was commuted by President Nixon, Chuckie became at odds  with him.  It is believed the conflict was due to Hoffa’s intent to go against O'Brien's LCN friends the Giacalones. It additionally seems that Hoffa's had intentions to prohibit Chuckie from  any further advancement in both the IBT leadership or among the ranks of Local 299  in Detroit. He apparently  wanted him transferred to an assignment far away from the Detroit Area making it difficult for O'Brien to have continued access to the Detroit Family LCN.  It seems these things led to O’Brien positioning  himself with those having a better chance to succeed in the coming years of the Teamsters Union.  Even so, this disagreement was probably not enough to erase their very close longstanding  historical bond. It appears they still were able to be on speaking terms as is revealed next.

 

Chuckie was living with Detroit area industrialist Marvin Adell  for about a year before the time of Hoffa’s disappearance.  He became acutely aware of the 1974 disappearance of Lawrence Adell who was Marvin's nephew.  O'Brien appealed to Hoffa to assist the Adell family and see if he could do anything to expedite finding what had happened to the young Adell boy.  This was still fresh on their minds when Jimmy Hoffa did not come home himself on July 30th, 1975.  These details suggest O'Brien was still on speaking terms with Hoffa.  Hoffa wanted his involvement with the Adells left out of the press.  But, it ended up the story came out that Hoffa had once been involved in a legal scrape with one of the kidnappers of Larry Adell. It is easy to surmise even with a strained relationship with Hoffa, that Chuckie O'Brien was used perhaps as a “patsy” in the plan to get rid of him. This "idea" is also referenced in the Hoffex Memo. We believe once O'Brien understood he had participated in the disappearance of his surrogate father Jimmy Hoffa, he tried to cover his tracks. O’Brien himself was nowhere to be found for a few days following the Hoffa disappearance. He was supposedly on a delayed honeymoon with his newly married bride. Later he provided numerous versions of his activities and whereabouts to the FBI. His story kept changing and these actions led them to making him a prime suspect. Never the less, to this day, the Hoffa children, who grew up with O’Brien, insist he knew details that could explain the facts associated with what happened and where Hoffa’s body was.

 

Recent events in 2019 have revealed from a book written by a step son of Chuckie O'Brien's a much different opinion.  The publication attempts to make a case to completely exonerate him. One could easily ask: Who's more credible? Is it Jimmy Hoffa's own biological children who were present during the actual events of 1975?  Jimmy P. Hoffa Jr. and Barbara Hoffa Crancer certainly knew what their surrogate "foster brother" Chuckie was like. They immediately suspected his involvement with their father's disappearance. Or, does it make more sense to go with Chuckie's stepson, 44 years later with quite the opposite view of him?  It seems to Findinghoffa.com that the original investigators coupled with the Hoffa family had a much clearer picture of those events. 

 

The ensuing evidence obtained through the confirmation of Hoffa's DNA found inside the car O'Brien said he had professionally cleaned and detailed further adds to picture. Even Chuckie's so called car wash slip mentioned in the book was dated but not time stamped.  That slip could have easily been reproduced due to the nature of the mechanical apparatus used to print out carbon copies back then.  People who may have lost their carbon copies could obtain another by having an employee dial back the credit card machine's date and run the credit card through for the customers misplaced records.  It happened frequently for those having to keep business expense travel voucher records  in the 70s. It is also noted that Marvin Adell and O'Brien later that same day got Adell's  car washed according to testimony. A regular car wash could be processed by any employee but the employee assigned to specifically detail cars denied cleaning the interior of the car in question and denied seeing O'Brien for that job when interviewed by the FBI.  The day the car was taken into evidence, Chuckie's finger prints included on trash found under the front seat, suspected fish blood stains, and the Hoffa DNA were still present. Findinghoffa.com became aware of the early reports that some of this evidence may have originally been sent to the new Michigan State Police crime lab located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

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Along with eye witness testimony that a person matching Chuckie O'Brien's description was driving the car with Hoffa as a passenger on that day, his stories were unsubstantiated as to his true whereabouts.

The alternative timeline provided has room for a quick ride from the restaurant to the suspected murder house. O'Brien had refused several times to take a polygraph administered by the Department of Justice. Yet a staged lie detector test  administered on the Maury Povich show was certainly not enough to satisfy the DOJ.  They still wanted to administer their own tests under circumstances best determining the validity of the results.  It appears they made the right move from what we have discovered. 

 

Looking at Chuckie's actions and some of the other things he had done for his mob friends it seems to be difficult to exonerate him from any of this.  His step son admitted O'Brien once obtained a human head from a cadaver and had it delivered in a package along with a threatening note to one of the former Detroit news paper editors. What kind of person would do such a thing? If he did something like that, he was certainly capable of driving is surrogate father from a place he often visited to another place a few minutes away. In the 1990s he was booted out of the IBT because of his own admission of being associated with a list of known mobsters, some being Hoffa suspects. The several versions Chuckie O'Brien provided to the FBI in August of 1975 were, and still are, full of discrepancies.  Thus, to this day, it appears there is still not enough credible information to overturn and fully exonerate O'Brien as a suspect.  We point out also that the opinion of one particular agent in the FBI, decades later, can not erase all the facts taken into evidence at the very beginning of the investigation by those authoring the Hoffex Memo.   

 

Lastly O'Brien, while discussing what he knew about the Hoffa disappearance, had previously said these words to his stepson as reported in an interview with Earl Morris in 2019.

 

O'Brien said to his stepson: "Yeah, Of course I knew more, dumb ass.  What do you think?"

His stepson replied: "I can't believe your not going to tell me about it. I can't believe you're taking it to your grave." 

O'Brien said: "Believe it." 

 

Chuckie O’Brien, no matter what the opinions are about him, was a key person and a possible source of information. We look at O’Brien as one of only a few individuals that could have provided some missing details of this mystery but refused to do so.  He died February 13th, 2020 and took his secrets with him to the grave as he promised.

 

 (We gathered some of our information from Hoffa’s autobiography: “Hoffa the Real Story” which was completed one month after he disappeared by biographer Oscar Fraley along with the published biography: “Hoffa”, written by Arthur A. Sloane “).

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 Steve Drummond  2020