Bid to clear the last living Jimmy Hoffa suspect: 'Truly un-American'

For the last 50 years, Gabe Briguglio has been known as one of the killers of labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Now 85 years old, he is the last FBI suspect still alive and, after all these decades, has high-powered help to try and finally clear his name.

"This man has been a victim for half-a-century. He did nothing wrong," says Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J. "The FBI, the attorney general and the Department of Justice can make this right, he needs a letter of clearance."

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Van Drew has sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking the Justice Department to review Briguglio's plight and issue that "letter of clearance," an official declaration that Briguglio was not involved in Hoffa's murder. 

Briguglio's name surfaced a few months after Hoffa disappeared in 1975, from a New Jersey prison inmate, Ralph Picardo. Picardo told the FBI what he thought had happened to Hoffa and authorities used his unsupported claim to impanel a grand jury in Detroit. But it turned out that the FBI, a Justice Department special prosecutor and a federal grand jury later exposed Picardo as "a pathological liar" who had a history of lying to FBI agents and fabricating allegations in cases to help himself.

"The FBI, quite frankly, should not have used his testimony so freely," says Van Drew. "The FBI should apologize."

In his letter, Van Drew wrote: "Mr. Briguglio's reputation and well-being have been significantly impacted by these unresolved allegations for nearly five decades."

"It is both just and necessary to consider a formal declaration of his non-involvement to restore his reputation and provide closure for his family... a Letter of Clearance would not only affirm the principles of justice and fairness but also provide significant relief to my constituent and his family."

Hoffa, the legendary labor leader who was the former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, vanished on July 30, 1975, on his way to what was believed to be a meeting with Mafia leaders as part of his effort to return as the head of the massive union. 

He was last seen in the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant, just outside the Detroit city line in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, getting into a maroon Mercury that belonged to the son of one of the Motor City's top mobsters, Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone. Hoffa thought he was meeting with Giacalone and Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, a powerful New Jersey Teamsters local president and capo in the Genovese crime family. 

"I have nothing to hide," Briguglio told Fox Nation, the Fox News streaming service, in the exclusive series "Riddle, The Search for James R. Hoffa."  He says the claim that he was part of the crew that killed Hoffa, repeated through the years by the media, in books and portrayed on the big screen, "are a lot of bull."

"I had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with anything that happened to Mr. Hoffa despite the countless claims that continue to call me a 'suspect' to this day. I am 85 years old and am hoping to put an end to the shadow that has been cast over my life and the lives of my family for nearly 50 years."

"I don't know how much longer I have to live," he says. "But for whatever time I have left, I want to get it off my head, I want it to be known."

Picardo, one of "Tony Pro's" mobsters, who was serving 23 years in state prison for second-degree murder, told the Feds that the month after Hoffa vanished, he was told "Tony Pro" was responsible for Hoffa's disappearance. He said that if that indeed was true, he believed a pair of brothers, "Tony Pro" associates Steven and Tommy Andretta and Sal Briguglio, and his brother, Gabe, were involved.

Picardo told authorities that Steven Andretta, identified as a New Jersey Genovese soldier in "Tony Pro's" crew, told him during a prison visit that "Tony Pro" was in on the Hoffa plot. FBI reports say that Picardo "speculated" that "if" Tony Pro was involved, it would "figure" that the Andrettas and the Briguglios were also involved. 

Observers point out that the mob stoolie did not provide any hard evidence about Gabe and the others to authorities, but the Feds pounced on his guesses because there were few, if any, other leads.

"I couldn't believe that somebody would put my name in there, until I found out it was Picardo," Briguglio told Fox Nation.

He says that when Hoffa disappeared in Michigan, he was at home in New Jersey and came home that night to his family after finishing work.

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"When I heard it was him, I knew right away what he had in mind.... He wanted to get out of jail," Gabe says about Picardo. "He's got to look for the best story that he could make up that would be believable, because he is a believable liar. That's exactly what he did."

The New York Times reported that Picardo was "fond of telling federal agents stories that had no basis in fact."

Court documents said Picardo "believed self-preservation was the 'name of the game,'" and had been held in the psychiatric wing of the Trenton State Prison.

Picardo was rewarded with his murder sentence being forgiven by the government, and he was released from prison in exchange for his cooperation. He has since died.

"Ralph wasn’t telling the truth. He was a murderer. He was a liar," says Van Drew.

Multiple former FBI and Justice Department officials and others have told Fox News that Briguglio had nothing to do with the Hoffa case. In fact, the very government officials who were in charge of Picardo and worked directly with him admitted that he was not trustworthy.

Retired FBI agent Jim Dooley, one of Picardo's case agents, said in 2022 that he "would not believe a word that came out of (Picardo's) mouth, 'including the 'a' and the 'the,' to quote Mary McCarthy, unless there was independent corroboration."

"We called him 'Ralph the Rat,' he was a pathological liar," says Melvin Gudknecht, a retired IRS special agent, who told Fox Nation that while what Picardo told him in a separate case was corroborated, "Little Ralphie" was still "a liar, he was an unsavory character, and he was a little bit crazy."

"He would lie as much as he can," says Briguglio. "He would lie if his mother, if he could throw his mother into the thing."

Time proved Gabe Briguglio right in a very big way.

In 1981, Picardo aimed his lies at the White House.

He accused President Ronald Reagan's nominee for U.S. Labor secretary, Ray Donovan, of taking bribes while Donovan was a top executive of a Garden State construction company. Picardo's claims about Donovan prompted an investigation by a special prosecutor and was the subject of headline-making Senate hearings that exposed Picardo's untruthfulness.

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Donovan, who went on to be confirmed to Reagan's Cabinet, testified at his U.S. Senate Labor Subcommittee hearing that "Picardo is lying. I know he is lying. In fact, I believe he's a pathological liar...There are witnesses... who call him 'a wacko,' 'off the wall,' ‘full of s---,’ OK? And a pathological liar."

Special Prosecutor Leon Silverman, who investigated Picardo's claims, concluded in his report to a panel of federal judges, "The source (Picardo) admitted having deliberately lied about all of the allegations and stated that none of them were true... the source stated that the source had deliberately fabricated the allegations... and that the allegations had all been lies."

Donovan's name was officially cleared from the damage of Picardo's lies, but Briguglio laments that his has not.

In 1975, he was subpoenaed by the grand jury in Detroit investigating Hoffa's disappearance and put in a line-up. He was not picked out. Instead, Briguglio was thrust into the national spotlight in the glare of publicity and media attention, saddling him with the label as one of Hoffa's suspected killers. He says he simply went home and has had to live all these years with notoriety, with no redress from the government.

"What I find so distressing is that there has never been any public attempt to correct all this," he says.

Briguglio's family is expressing "heartfelt thanks" to Van Drew for his efforts to clear their father's name.

"I am grateful that my father is finally being heard and that there is someone not only willing to listen, but to take action," says Briguglio's daughter, Jonna.

"To me, it is courageous to stand up for someone's rights and for my father, who is now 85 years old, he is so grateful that someone is hearing his plea." 

There is a precedent to seek a "letter of clearance" in the Hoffa case. In 2013, Jack Goldsmith, Harvard Law professor and former U.S. associate attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, sought one for his stepfather, Detroit Hoffa suspect Charles "Chuckie" O'Brien.

"The Hoffa investigation enveloped Chuckie and eventually ruined his life," wrote Goldsmith. His stepfather was about to receive the document that would have cleared his name, but an internal government agency procedural issue blocked its issuance when the then U.S. attorney ruled that the FBI had no jurisdiction to grant the request.  O'Brien died in 2020 at the age of 86 without getting the vindication he had so hoped to receive.

Briguglio's older brother, Sal, who was identified as a Genovese crime family hit man, was shot to death gangland style in Manhattan's Little Italy in 1978.  It was believed that he was going to turn state's evidence and testify against "Tony Pro" in a 1960 union-related murder.

Briguglio insists he was not in the Mafia, and only dealt with Provenzano as part of union business in his role as an official of another Teamsters local. He did end up serving two years in federal prison in an unrelated labor racketeering case, which he says was a setup. He says the witness who framed him was, again, "the proven liar" Ralph Picardo.

Briguglio's family says their father's treatment has been a miscarriage of justice, confirming the old adage that justice delayed is justice denied... even after nearly half-a-century.

"All my life, my father has taught me to stand up not only for my rights, but for the rights of others. This has been the example he has always set for me and my siblings. But my family has lived with this injustice for almost 50 years with no one fighting for us.  I truly don't know if I can find the words to adequately express what this means," says Jonna.

"For God's sake, let's end this and clear his name," says Van Drew. "I believe in America, and I believe in the rule of law and I believe in justice and when it doesn't work right, we must fix it."

"This is something that deserves to be rectified. It is so wrong, and it is truly un-American."

Watch our exclusive interview with Gabe Briguglio and our series "Riddle, The Search For James R. Hoffa," now on Fox Nation.