For the past 50 years, Gabe Briguglio has been known as one of the killers of labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Now 85, he is the last of the killers alive. FBI suspects He’s still alive and after all these decades, he’s getting high-level help to 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 Justice Department can make this right; he needs a clearance letter.”
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Van Drew has sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking that Justice Department to review Briguglio’s plight and issue a “clearance letter”, an official declaration that Briguglio was not involved in Hoffa’s murder.
Briguglio’s name came up in 1975 by Ralph Picardo, an inmate at a New Jersey jail, a few months after Hoffa disappeared. 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 was later revealed that the FBI, a Justice Department special prosecutor and a federal grand jury exposed Picardo as “a pathological liar” who had a history of lying to FBI agents and fabricating charges in cases to help himself.
“Frankly, the FBI should not have used his testimony so freely,” Van Drew says. “The FBI should apologize.”
In his letter, Van Drew wrote: “For nearly five decades, these unresolved allegations have had a significant impact on Mr. Briguglio’s reputation and well-being.”
James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters labor union, in 1966. (Getty Images)
“It is both just and necessary to consider a formal declaration of his non-involvement in order to restore his reputation and provide relief to his family… The letter of sanction will not only uphold the principles of justice and fairness but will also provide significant relief to a resident of my constituency and his family.”
Hoffa, the legendary labor leader who was the former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, disappeared on July 30, 1975, while on his way to a meeting with Mafia leaders in his bid to return to power as head of the massive union.
He was last seen in the parking lot of Mac’s Red Fox Restaurant, which is right outside the restaurant. Detroit Hoffa drove over the city line in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, getting into the maroon Mercury of the son of Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone, one of the Motor City’s top mafiosi. Hoffa thought he was meeting Giacalone and Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, the president of a powerful New Jersey Teamsters local and a capo in the Genovese crime family.
“I have nothing to hide,” Briguglio told Fox News streaming service Fox Nation in the exclusive series “Riddle, The Search for James R. Hoffa.” He said the claim that he was part of Hoffa’s murder crew, repeated for years by the media, in books and on the big screen, “is a lot of nonsense.”
“I had nothing to do with what happened to Mr. Hoffa, despite countless claims that to this day label me a ‘suspect.’ I am 85 years old and hope to put an end to the shadow that has been cast over my life and my family’s lives for the last 50 years.”
Letter from Rep. Jeff Van Drew to Attorney General Merrick Garland to clear Gabe Briguglio’s name. (Representative Jeff Van Drew)
He says, “I don’t know how much longer I have to live. But whatever time I have left, I want to get it out of my mind, I want everyone to know this.”
Picardo, one of “Tony Pro’s” goons who was serving a 23-year sentence in state prison for second-degree murder, told the feds that a month after Hoffa disappeared, he was told that “Tony Pro” was responsible for Hoffa’s disappearance. He said that if this was true, he believed two brothers, “Tony Pro’s” associates Steven and Tommy Andretta and Sal Briguglio, and their brother, Gabe, were involved.
Picardo told authorities that Steven Andretta, identified as a New Jersey Genovese soldier in “Tony Pro’s” crew, had told him Prison visit that “Tony Pro” was involved in Hoffa’s conspiracy. The FBI report says Picardo “guessed” that “if” Tony Pro was involved, it “would follow” that Andretta and Briguglio were also involved.
Observers say the Mafia kingpin did not provide authorities with any concrete evidence about Gabb and the others, but federal officials relied on his guesses because other leads were scant.
“I couldn’t believe someone would even put my name in there until I found out it was Picardo’s name,” Briguglio told Fox Nation.
They say Hoffa was at home in New Jersey when he disappeared in Michigan and came home to his family that night 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 of Picardo. “He had to find the best story he could make up that would be believable, because he’s a credible liar. That’s exactly what he did.”
The New York Times reported that Picardo was “fond of telling federal agents stories that had no factual basis.”
Court documents said Picardo “believed self-defense was the ‘name of the game,'” and was placed in the psychiatric wing of Trenton State Prison.
Picardo was pardoned for murder by the government and released from prison in exchange for his cooperation. He has since died.
“Ralph wasn’t telling the truth. He was a killer. He was a liar,” Van Drew says.
Several 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 same government officials who were in charge of Picardo and worked directly with him admitted he was not trustworthy.
Ralph Picardo, a convicted murderer, was exposed as a con man who fabricated stories to benefit the FBI. A special Justice Department prosecutor called him “a pathological liar.” (Getty Images)
Retired FBI agent Jim Dooley, one of Picardo’s case agents, said in 2022 that he “wouldn’t believe a single word that came out of (Picardo’s) mouth, including the words ‘a’ and ‘the’ in Mary McCarthy’s words, until there was independent corroboration.”
“We used to call him ‘Ralph the Rat,’ he was a pathological liar,” says retired IRS special agent Melvin Goodknecht. He told Fox Nation that although Picardo confirmed what he had told him in a separate case, “Little Ralphie” was still “a liar, he was an unpleasant character, and he was a little crazy.”
“He’ll lie as much as he can. If he can throw his mother into this thing, he’ll lie,” says Briguglio.
Time has proven Gabe Briguglio right in a big way.
In 1981, Picardo lied to the White House.
He alleged that President Ronald Reagan’s Ray Donovan, the nominee for U.S. Secretary of Labor, is accused of taking bribes while Donovan was a top executive at Garden State Construction Co. Picardo’s claims about Donovan prompted an investigation by a special prosecutor and were the subject of a Senate hearing that exposed Picardo’s perjury.
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Donovan, who had been included in Reagan’s Cabinet, testified at a US Senate Labor Subcommittee hearing that “Picardo is lying. I know he is lying. In fact, I believe he is a pathological liar…. There are witnesses who call him ‘crazy,’ ‘insane,’ ‘utter nonsense,’ okay? And a pathological liar.”
Leon Silverman, the special prosecutor who investigated Picardo’s claims, concluded in his report to a panel of federal judges, “The source (Picardo) admitted to knowingly lying about all of the allegations and stated that none of them were true… The source stated that the source knowingly fabricated the allegations… and that the allegations were all false.”
Donovan’s name is officially cleared of Picardo’s lies, but Briguglio is saddened that his name is not.
In 1975, a Detroit grand jury investigating Hoffa’s disappearance subpoenaed him and included him in the line-up. He was not selected. Instead, Briguglio was thrust into the national spotlight by a flurry of publicity and media attention that labeled him as one of Hoffa’s suspected killers. He says he simply went home and has had to live with the infamy all these years, with no relief from the government.
“What saddens me most is that there has never been any public effort to rectify all this,” he says.
Briguglio’s family is expressing “heartfelt thanks” to Van Drew for his efforts to clear their father’s name.
“I’m grateful that my father is finally being heard and that there is someone who is willing to not only listen, but take action,” says Briguglio’s daughter Joanna.
“For me, it takes courage to stand up for one’s rights and my father, who is now 85, is very grateful that someone is listening to his pleas.”
Representative Jeff Van Drew attends a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
An example of seeking a “clearance letter” is in the Hoffa case. In 2013, Harvard Law professor and former U.S. Associate Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration Jack Goldsmith sought a clearance letter for his stepfather, Detroit Hoffa suspect Charles “Chucky” O’Brien.
“The Hoffa investigation engulfed Chucky and ultimately ruined his life,” Goldsmith wrote. His stepfather was supposed to receive the document that would have cleared his name, but an internal government agency procedural issue prevented it from being released when the then-U.S. Attorney ruled that the FBI had no authority to grant the request. O’Brien died in 2020 at age 86 and did not receive the punishment he expected.
Briguglio’s older brother, Sal, who had been identified as a Genovese crime family assassin, was shot to death gangland style in Manhattan’s Little Italy in 1978. It was believed he was going to turn state’s evidence and testify against “Tony Pro” in a union-related murder in the 1960s.
Briguglio says he was not in the Mafia, and that he had dealt with Provenzano only as part of union business in his role as an official of another Teamsters local. He serves two years in federal prison in an unrelated labor racketeering case, which he says was a conspiracy. He says the witness who implicated him was again a “proven liar” Ralph Picardo.
Briguglio’s family says the treatment meted out to their father was a failure of justice, confirming the old adage that justice delayed is justice denied … and that too nearly half a century later.
“My father has taught me all my life to stand up not only for my rights but for the rights of others. That’s the example he has always set for me and my siblings. But my family has lived with this injustice for almost 50 years and there’s no one fighting for us. I don’t really know if I can properly express what this means,” says Joanna.
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“For God’s sake, let’s get this over with and clear his name,” Van Drew says. “I believe in America, and I believe in the rule of law and I believe in justice and when it doesn’t work the right way, we ought to fix it.”
“This is something that needs to be corrected. It’s very wrong, and it’s really un-American.”
Watch our exclusive interview with Gabe Briguglio and our series “Riddle, The Search for James R. Hoffa” now on Fox Nation.
