“Charles Brandt has solved the Hoffa mystery.” —Professor Arthur Sloane, author of Hoffa “It’s all true.” — New York Police Department organized crime homicide detective Joe Coffey "I heard you paint houses" are the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran. I don’t know when it might be filmed, but getting these big name artists together at the same time must be difficult for the producers.The working title has been "The Irishman," but recently in a Wall Street Journal video interview Robert De Niro said he preferred the movie be titled "I Heard You Paint Houses" after the book.To paint a house is to kill someone. As I recall, 200 or so.
Then 33 years later on September 13, 2004, Brandt stabbed his wife and niece to death and then hanged himself in his niece's … When Frank told Hoffa “what it is”, meaning Hoffa would be killed if he didn’t drop out of the race, Hoffa replied, “They wouldn’t dare.”Second, capo Tony Provenzano and his boss Fat Tony Salerno of the Genovese family controlled Fitz, and even if Hoffa had controlled his incendiary language they were not about to let Hoffa run in the next election and take away their golden goose, an election Hoffa likely would have won.Third, Pro and Hoffa had a deep feud going back to their days in jail together in the 1960s.
The FBI got Frank for Labor Racketeering and he was sentenced to 32 years; when someone else might have gotten five years. In visiting his parents he told them about the book he was eager to buy, but not being alive during Watergate he had trouble imagining that an Attorney General would take bribes. After Hoffa was killed Fat Tony Salerno was picked up on a wiretap dictating to the Teamsters Union whom their next President would be. At that point, he was identified as a suspect in Hoffa's murder in all the books and all the articles,” Brandt said. The 1966 Supreme Court decision of Miranda v. Arizona took power away from law enforcement when it came to picking up suspects for interrogation. In Hoffa’s mind having Russell there would be good news. I taught interrogation to cops and cross-examination to other lawyers. The first question the agents asked him in jail was what happened to Hoffa and he told them Sheeran had told the truth. Every morning as he exited the hotel, Brandt said, the film director's home was to the right, but he would first turn left to see the New York Telephone Company building where he once walked beams, four stories high, for $65 a week.“I would look at that building and remember that in 1960 when it was being built, I worked on that building and used to have to walk the beams to deliver messages.
Both Frank and Russell tried to warn Hoffa at a meeting at Broadway Eddie’s in Philadelphia in 1974. I know when a subject has a need to confess. “It's been thrilling. Russell Bufalino and a lot of dangerous guys he talked about were still alive. Presidents were elected by delegates at a convention, not by the rank-and-file. Brandt published “I Heard You Paint Houses” in 2004, detailing Sheeran's account of the years he worked for crime boss Bufalino, played in “The Irishman” by Joe Pesci. I got Frank released on early parole for medical reasons after he had served nine years, and that’s how our relationship got started.As a result of the Hoffa case the FBI put on tons of new agents. For example, Frank was in jail with one of the infamous 1950s Brinks Armored Car robbers. This is a red carpet interview with author Charles Brandt at the USC Scripter Awards 2020. A former resident of Fort Wayne, Indiana and longtime resident of the Florida Keys, Brandt shot his parents on January 3, 1971 when he was 13, killing his pregnant mother.
But when Bufalino and other organized crime figures turned on Hoffa, Sheeran sided with his organized crime mentor.According to his confession, Sheeran came to Detroit on July 30, 1975 ostensibly to attend the wedding of Bufalino’s niece to the son of criminal defense attorney William Bufalino (no relation). Joe Coffey, who had founded the NYPD Organized Crime Homicide Division. It was literally a deathbed confession for this man who had determined the life expectancy of over two dozen men in civilian life and countless others in combat. Frank wasn’t involved in the cremation and so he doesn’t know which cemetery Hoffa’s body was taken to.
Brandt and actor Robert DeNiro celebrate the last day of shooting on the set of “The Irishman.” SUBMITTED PHOTOSCharles Brandt and his wife Nancy attend the New York premiere of “The Irishman.”Nancy and Charles Brandt at the Los Angeles premiere of “The Irishman” met actor Al Pacino on the red carpet.DeNiro, Nancy and Charles celebrate the New York premiere at Tavern on the Green.