John C. Cheasty, who became the government's star witness after James R. Hoffa of the Teamsters union recruited him to spy on a Senate committee investigating labor racketeering in the 1950's, died June 14 in Bahama, N.C. He was 96.þþThe cause was congestive heart failure, Mr. Cheasty's family said. He died at the home of a daughter with whom he had lived for several years, the Rev. Patrice Cheasty-Miller, the pastor of St. Paul United Methodist Church in Durham.þþA New York lawyer and investigator, Mr. Cheasty (pronounced CHASE-tee) figured in an episode that began with Hoffa's offer of big-money bribes. Mr. Cheasty took the first payment straight to Robert F. Kennedy, the chief counsel to the committee Hoffa wanted Mr. Cheasty to infiltrate. Hoffa was arrested after what he believed was a clandestine meeting with Mr. Cheasty in a Washington hotel.þþBut a federal jury acquitted Hoffa of bribery and conspiracy charges, fanning a long-running feud between Hoffa and Kennedy.þþMr. Cheasty began his career as a Treasury agent in the 1930's. After graduating from Manhattan College and Fordham Law School, he worked with the Treasury team that built a tax-evasion case against Enoch L. (Nucky) Johnson, the Republican boss of Atlantic County, N.J. þþAs a Navy commander in World War II, he was put in charge of the military base at Luzon, in the Philippines. He was a Navy lawyer in 500 courts-martial after the war before he contracted an illness that was diagnosed as a heart problem and he retired on disability.þþBack home in Brooklyn, after realizing he was not dying, he opened a law practice. He handled tax-evasion cases for Joe Bosano, a nephew of Albert Anastasia, the New York Mafia leader, among others.þþHe also made friends with a lawyer named Hyman I. Fischbach, who said a client wanted to infiltrate the Senate committee and find out what it was looking into.þþÿI asked him, 'Who is your client?' ÿ Mr. Cheasty later testified. ÿHe opened an address book and said 'Jimmy' or 'James Hoffa,' and two phone numbers. I whistled and said, 'Wow, Mr. Big himself.' ÿ þþMr. Cheasty flew to Detroit for a meeting with Hoffa, then called Kennedy, who arranged for him to join the committee's staff. Kennedy later said Mr. Cheasty had felt Hoffa ÿwas asking him to betray his country.ÿ þþWith Mr. Cheasty's testimony and undercover film showing Hoffa accepting a packet of Senate material, the case seemed solid. Kennedy said he would ÿjump off the Capitol domeÿ if the government lost.þþBut on the day Hoffa testified, the former heavyweight champion Joe Louis walked into the courtroom, threw an arm around Hoffa and told reporters he wanted to ÿsee what they're doing to my good friend Jimmy Hoffa.ÿ þþLouis's appearance ÿundoubtedly had a strong effect on the black members of the jury,ÿ Walter Sheridan wrote in ÿThe Rise and Fall of Jimmy Hoffaÿ (Saturday Review Press, 1972). þþHowever, the jury of eight blacks and four whites told reporters that race was not a factor in their verdict; they said that they voted to acquit Hoffa because they did not believe Mr. Cheasty. (Bribery and conspiracy charges against Mr. Fischbach were later dropped.)þþFederal agents kept watch on the Cheasty household for more than a year. Mr. Cheasty's relatives say the F.B.I. gave him the code name Cat. þþAfter the Hoffa verdict, Mr. Cheasty's old client Mr. Bosano asked for a meeting. He told Mr. Cheasty that a contract had been taken out on him but that ÿUncle Albertÿ - Mr. Anastasia - had blocked it. þþMr. Cheasty worked on John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960 and later moved his law practice to Washington for a few years before returning to New York. After he retired at 87 in 1994, he told his family that in the 60's and 70's he had been a contract employee of the Central Intelligence Agency.þþIn addition to Ms. Cheasty-Miller, he is survived by two other daughters, Virginia Lucey of Old Greenwich, Conn., and Mary Kornman of New York; two sons, John C., of Clarksville, Tenn., and Robert C., of Berkeley, Calif.; and 16 grandchildren. Mr. Cheasty's wife, Virginia, died in 1998.þþþþ
Source: NY Times
