# Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Central States Pension Fund hearings (1980)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/psi-1980-central-states-pension-fund-hearings/

Hearings of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, August 25-26 and September 29-30, 1980, on the Labor Department's investigation of the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund, including a staff summary of FBI affidavits on Kansas City and hidden interests in Las Vegas casinos.

The title page reads "Oversight of Labor Department's Investigation of Teamsters Central States Pension Fund. Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, Ninety-sixth Congress, Second Session, August 25 and 26 and September 29 and 30, 1980," printed in Washington in 1981. The National Criminal Justice Reference Service number is 76446. Sam Nunn presided. The scan is about 527 pages, and this record draws on printed pages 169 to 176 and on the questioning of Roy L. Williams. Quotations are from the scan's uncorrected text.

Jack Key, chief intelligence officer of the subcommittee, recalled a hearing of April 1980 on organized crime and told the subcommittee what he had found in FBI affidavits submitted to obtain court-authorized interceptions in the Western District of Missouri. He said that "Nick Civella's ability to control the Central States Pension Fund loan was the key to their obtaining an interest in the Tropicana Hotel," that Nick Civella "was identified as being the head of the Kansas City 'outfit,'" and that on August 8, 1978 Joseph Agosto, "who was the Kansas City 'outfit' principal management agent in Las Vegas," called Carl "Tuffy" DeLuna and discussed the payments due to the Central States Pension Fund and the physical assets of the Stardust Casino. He read a passage from an affidavit of November 10, 1978 about calls between Civella and Morris Shenker, owner of the Dunes, in which Civella was addressed as "Mr. Quinn." He added that an affidavit of September 24, 1978 stated that the Kansas City group had a concealed interest in the Dunes fronted by Shenker, and that Civella stayed at the Dunes in August 1974 under a fictitious name, for which the hotel was fined $10,000.

This is a staff member's summary of affidavits, not a court finding. The affidavits' statements about concealed interests are the FBI's statements to a court. Williams, a Teamsters official, was questioned about Civella and Allen Dorfman and invoked the Fifth Amendment. The courts' findings in the Kansas City cases are on the pages for [United States v. DeLuna](/items/courtlistener-us-v-deluna-763-f2d-897/) and [United States v. Cerone](/items/courtlistener-us-v-cerone-830-f2d-938/).

## Sources

- National Criminal Justice Reference Service, scan of the printed hearings (NCJ 76446): https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/76446NCJRS.pdf
- NCJRS abstract page: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/oversight-labor-departments-investigation-teamsters-central-states