December 24, 1971, Page 1Buy Reprints
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 —President Nixon commuted today the prison term of James R. Hoffa, former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Hoffa walked free from the Federal Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa., after serving 4 years, 9 months and 16 days of a 13‐year term.
Hoffa was released under a conditional commutation of sentence that specifies that he cannot “engage in the direct or indirect management of any labor organization” until March 6 1980, the date his full term would have ended.
President Nixon commuted the 13‐year prison term—which represented an eight‐year sentence for jury tampering and five‐year term for pension fund fraud—to six and one‐half years.
Unlike a pardon, commutation of a sentence does not remove the stigma of conviction.
Will Join Family
Because the 58‐year‐old former chief of the nation's largest union was entitled to time off for good behavior, that made him eligible for release, today.
He was met on his release by Robert Crancer of St. Louis, his daughter's husband. He told reporters that he would go as quickly as possible to St. Louis to spend Christmas with his family.
He will reside in Dkroit, where he will have to report regularly to a Federal probation officer until 1973. Hoffa, who was voted a $75,000‐a‐year lifetime salary as “president emeritus” of the teamsters’ union after he resigned the presidency last June, has said that he will lecture and teach.
Turned Down 3 Times
Before today's executive clemency, Hoffa applied three times to the Federal Parole Board and was turned down each time. The last time, on Aug. 20, the board stressed that when his case next came up for consideration, in June, 1972, the board would want assurances that he had cut all ties to the teamsters’ union.
The commutation came with exceptional speed — especially for the Nixon Administration, which has frequently been accused of being slow to act on requests for clemency.
Morris Shenker of St. Louis, Hoffa's lawyer, filed a request for commutation on Dec. 16. This morning, President Nixon signed the Executive order setting Hoffa free. He also sighed other clemency actions.
Six other prisoners sentences were similarly shortened to time served so they were eligible for release today. The terms of 10 others were shortened but not to time served, and the fines of two were remitted.
Mr. Nixon also granted pardons to 235 persons. This action returns voting privileges and other civil rights to persons who have served their terms and are free.
About 15 minutes after Hoffa was freed at 4 P. M., the Justice Department's information office announced the action and issued a statement.
It said that Hoffa's wife, Josephine, “is suffering from severe heart condition with attendant difficulties” and noted that he was released briefly last April to visit her in San Francisco.
Terming Hoffa's prison record “excellent,” the statement said that he had been housed in a minimum‐security honor unit, assigned to a clothing issue detail. “He has maintained a good attitude toward supervisory officers and has maintained close family ties,” it added.
If he had not been granted clemency or parole but had continued to accrue the “good time” granted by law, he would have been entitled to release on Nov. 23, 1975.
John W. Hushen, director of public information for the Justice Department, said that the terms of the commutation would also bar Hoffa from any connection with the teamster pension fund.
Mr. Hushen said that the conditions would not affect the status of Hoffa's wife, who is the $50,000‐a‐year director of the women's auxiliary of the teamster's union's political action group. It will also not affect his. son, James P. Hoffa, who is a teamster lawyer in Detroit.
Mr. Hushen declined to say if the Justice Department, before deciding to recommend clemency, had followed its usual procedure of asking the opinion of the judges who had imposed the sentences.
Mr. Nixon's inclusion of Hoffa in his Christmas clemency list could pay important political dividends. The former truck driver is still enormously popular with rank‐and‐file union members, and pressure for his release had come from the single most powerful Republican figure in the Presidential primary state of New Hampshire—William Loeb, publisher of The Manchester Union Leader.
Asked by reporters today if he thought Mr. Nixon's action was politically motivated to get teamster support and whether he planned to support Mr. Nixon for re‐election, Hoffa said, “I will determine whatever I'm going to do politically after I learn what the restrictions are” on his release.
Hoffa's release brought to a close a long and controversial era of litigation, in which special squad organized by the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy brought a series of prosecutions until two convictions were obtained against the teamster chief. His lawyers made repeated efforts to have the convictions overturned.
His first conviction came in March, 1964, when he was found guilty of tampering with a jury in Nashville, Tenn., while standing trial for an earlier charge brought by the Government. In August, 1964, he was convicted in United States District Court in Chicago on four counts of defrauding the teamsters’ pension fund of some $2million, He entered prison on March 7, 1967.