Jimmy Hoffa (via Wikipedia)
See updates at end of post
A half-century ago, I was part of a ghoulish office pool started in the Philadelphia bureau of the Associated Press, where I worked at the time. On what day of the week would Jimmy Hoffa’s body be found? He was the convicted, mobbed-up ex-Teamsters Union president who suddenly vanished after leaving a Detroit-area restaurant in 1975. His disappearance quickly became a national sensation. It was widely believed–then and now–Hoffa was done in at the behest of one of his supposed organized crime cronies.
Six of us hacks each pitched in $5.00 (about $30 in today’s dollars). I chose Saturday.
As it turned out, Hoffa’s remains were never found. He’s still missing. So no one won the office pool (except my supervisor, who didn’t return the wagers even though there was no “winner”). Hoffa was legally declared dead in 1982, although the case officially is still open.
The Hoffa bet popped into my mind amid the big news last night that newly re-inaugurated President Donald J. Trump pardoned or commuted nearly 1,600 rioters who had a hand in storming the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. Those receiving his grace included several convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Since I’m now New to Las Vegas, let’s start a new pool. In what month going forward will the first of these releasees be re-arrested on charges of committing another criminal act of some kind? In my view, with such a large universe of suddenly emboldened suspected hooligans for whom law and order has proven to be an elusive concept, it’s certain to happen. Just a matter of when.
When the first arrest takes place, ironies will abound. Trump got re-elected in no small part by playing up every crime he heard about that was committed on a U.S. citizen in the U.S. by an illegal immigrant (actually, a rate far lower than those committed by native-born Americans). The explicit implication was that stronger borders would have kept the criminal out of the country, thus preventing the crime in the first place.
I consider it inevitable that this universe will produce multiple repeat offenders, and sooner rather than later. It will be fascinating to hear the White House defend against the suggestion that a January 6 defendant kept in jail, or on supervised parole or probation, might have avoided committing the new crime. I predict more acrobatic action in the White House Briefing Room than a Cirque du Soleil show on the Las Vegas Strip.
Now I have no idea how to make this scheme work. But if any place can do it, it is Las Vegas. The sports books already have the infrastructure to take prop bets. So why not perp bets on a perp pool?
Trump is co-owner of Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, Nevada’s tallest non-casino building. So he wouldn’t be able to get any of this action, at least not directly. But the excitement could bring more tourists to town, which would be economically beneficial to him. Trump and his family have been known to mix official actions with personal business.
There are a couple other interesting angles here involving Vegas, Hoffa and presidents. Organized crime families building some of the early casino hotels from which they skimmed profits for themselves without paying taxes used loans from Teamsters pension funds while Hoffa was running the union.
Hoffa himself was convicted in the 1960s in separate trials of jury tampering and conspiracy involving shenanigans with the Teamsters pension fund. He was in the middle of a 13-year-prison sentence when President Richard Nixon–wait for this–commuted his sentence to time served and freed him in 1971. For some reason, the Teamsters–no longer led by Hoffa but under his influence–endorsed Nixon the next year in his successful re-election bid.
In 1974, of course, Nixon resigned in the face of certain impeachment over the Watergate scandal.
Nixon’s commutation of Hoffa’s sentence had included a nine-year prohibition on union activity. After an unsuccessful court challenge, Hoffa essentially ignored the ban and was working on his union comeback at the time of his 1975 disappearance. That was less than a year after Nixon’s resignation. Bad habits die hard all around.
For the Vegas perp pool on Trump’s crowd, I’ll take May.
Interesting idea. I didn’t like either candidate in 2020 , but I remember watching television on the evening of Jan. 6 and wondering why the Capitol Police hadn’t locked the building and instead were escorting protesters through the place. I hope we learn more than we did after Hoffa’s disappearance.
Wonderful idea, Bill. Found a site today on Bluesky, https://trumpgolftrack.com, similar to one your web provider might allow you to re-create a page with the perp pool theme. Best wishes in the desert!
Great post!!
I’ll take April!!