CHUCKIE

Charles “Chuckie” O’Brien is a key person involved with the disappearance of James R.

Hoffa (JRH). Of all the “Cast of Characters” listed in the Hoffex Memo, it is O’Brien that is linked to the forensic evidence discovered in a maroon-burgundy 1975 Mercury Marquis, he happened to be driving on the day Hoffa went missing.  Authorities conducted a search of the car in question. Trained police dogs detected Hoffa’s scent in the back seat and trunk.  The evidence consisted of hair and small traces of blood collected from the interior of the vehicle. In 2001, through DNA analysis, the evidence was determined to belong to the missing Jimmy Hoffa. In 1975 it was discovered the car belonged to Joseph "Joey" Giacalone, the son of Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone. It was “Tony Jack” along with Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, Hoffa was to meet with at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant North of Detroit, Michigan on the day he disappeared. Investigators located this car and added it to evidence. It was not long afterward they determined Chuckie O’Brien was the driver of this vehicle. O’Brien told authorities he had borrowed it to deliver a large frozen salmon to Robert Holmes, the president of Teamsters local 337 and Central States Pension Fund Trustee.  Chuckie O'Brien continued to deny seeing Hoffa on the day in question and driving him for his "last ride".  

 

There are researchers and investigators who object to O’Brien being a suspect to any of these events.  However, those objecting forget that O’Brien had been spending a lot of time with the Giacalone's who were a prominent La Cosa Nostra Mafia family in Detroit. Unfortunately, even though the 1975 Mercury Marquis contained evidence tying O’Brien, the Giacalone's, and Jimmy Hoffa together, it was not long for some “hoffaologists” to minimize its importance to the case.  We think it’s a mistake to exclude O’Brien from any workable hypothesis.  As was already said, Tony Giacalone was one of the men Hoffa was to meet with that day.  Secondly, O’Brien was a longtime friend of the Hoffa family.  His parents had been close friends with the Hoffa family for many years. Most important, he confessed to driving the car on that day.  

 

Chuckie O’Brien literally grew up around the Hoffa’s. His mother was Sylvia Pagano, also known as Sylvia Paris.  Chuckie's father was identified as Sam ("The Binger") Scaradino of Kansas City. This man was associated with the Kansas City Mob. If true, it could make Chuckie O'Brien 100% Italian.  Many historians have chronicled that Sam Scaradino used the name O'Brien when he was a prize fighter earlier in his life. His son, Charles assumed the O'Brien name rather than the Scaradino name. (Source information: the FBI Vault and Biographer Arthur Sloane).

 

However, another story emerged in 2019 from one of Chuckie's stepsons.  The conflicting report states his real father was someone else going by the same name, "Charles Lenton O'Brien Sr.".  This latest rendition still includes this previously unknown man was also associated with the Sicilian mob in Kansas City and did the exact same things Sam Scaradino was known to have done.  Since the stepson's confusing opinion is included in O'Brien's obituary, there are now those automatically excepting the report as the final truth of the matter. It certainly makes it difficult to really know who Chuckie O'Brien's father was.  One publication, we note, made a reference to a possible father that was in the picture even before the time of Scaradino.  So, the entire matter is unclear and now has become even more ambiguous.  The research reveals issues like this are consistent with much of what Chuckie O'Brien said and did during his life.  He seemed to have great difficulty getting any of his stories straight. Many people who knew Chuckie O'Brien felt he was not someone who could be relied upon to tell the truth. His life seemed like a steady stream of conflicting and contradicting tales resulting in a collective distrust of any of his accounts.  The story gets more complicated with how O'Brien is linked to Jimmy Hoffa.  Yet, some of what he did and said has been verified. 

 

Many reports seem to agree one man listed as Chuckie's fathers died when he was very young. His mother Sylvia had moved to Detroit and often traveled back and forth between there and Kansas City. It appears she would often leave young Chuckie under the care of others during her absences.   In the early 1930s she met Jimmy Hoffa. She was involved with Hoffa before he had married his wife Josephine in 1936.  Ms. Pagano introduced Hoffa to many people attached to organized crime. One such person was Frank Coppola.  Frank was a well-connected underworld figure who became Chuckie's Godfather.  It is reported Coppola started seeing Ms. Pagano after Hoffa ended his relationship with her and began seeing his eventual bride, Josephine Poszywak.  Later on, the Hoffa's took Sylvia Pagano and her boy Chuckie into their own home.  As time went on, O'Brien's mother Sylvia became romantically connected with Detroit LCN's Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone. Thus, Jimmy Hoffa became a surrogate father to Chuckie and Anthony Giacalone became "Uncle Tony."

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So, historically O’Brien had been as close to the Hoffa's as any one was, even to the point of living with the Hoffa family.  Interviews with Jimmy Hoffa’s family indicate originally O’Brien, since the age of seven, had been around the Hoffa's and by age nine he lived with them in Hoffa's home.  He was treated as part of the family as he grew into adulthood.  Some accounts vary, but this relationship seemed to continue on and off during his mother's marriage to her second husband John Paris.  Of course, the rumors that Chuckie O’Brien’s mother was once romantically involved with Jimmy Hoffa resurfaced from time to time giving some people the impression that Chuckie could be Hoffa's biological son. Nothing as of yet supports such a conclusion. But hearsay rumors also pointed to Sylvia becoming involved with Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone in a later affair while she was married to John Paris.  Paris apparently died in 1957. What we can gather from all this fanfare is that Jimmy Hoffa and Chuckie O’Brien shared a long and very close history together with "Uncle Tony Jack".  So, really, it is not difficult to conclude that Hoffa would be willing to catch a ride with O’Brien and other expected people in a familiar car in order to meet Anthony Giacalone for a pre-arranged meeting in 1975.  This would especially be the case since the familiar car O’Brien was driving belonged to Giacalone’s son. 

 

As Chuckie got older, he became deeply involved with Teamster Union activities and often accompanied Jimmy Hoffa in his travels.  It is documented by reliable sources, Chuckie O’Brien made a number of poor decisions while involved with the Teamsters assignments he was given. However, he was often granted a great deal of latitude by Jimmy Hoffa himself.  It appears this relationship allowed O’Brien more leeway than most other people would have received from Hoffa even if they were not seeing things eye to eye.  Whether Chuckie O’Brien admitted it or not, he owed a lot to Jimmy Hoffa. 

 

The story persists with some who continue to believe because Jimmy Hoffa stated O’Brien was “like a son to him” and for a time had actually lived with the Hoffa family, that he was legally Hoffa’s "foster son".  In reality, O’Brien had lived with the Hoffa's for a time along with his mother. He acted as a chauffeur to accompany Mrs. Josephine Hoffa back and forth to the federal prison in Lewisburg on “family” visiting days. It may have been stated to officials he was Hoffa’s actual foster son so that his wife Josephine could comfortably enter the visiting area inside the prison with an escort in whom the Hoffa’s trusted.  Chuckie also escorted JRH during the Test Fleet Trials leading up to Hoffa’s imprisonment in 1967.  As was portrayed in a recent motion picture; O'Brien brutally attacked a man who had tried to cause harm to Hoffa in a court room drama.  Chuckie defended his surrogate father as the crazed individual used a type of air gun, shooting and hitting Hoffa in front of dozens of witnesses.  It would take something like this event to become a catalyst to create a lasting bond between O'Brien and Hoffa.  O'Brien's stepson seems to have brought that relationship to the surface for public examination.  One can get a sense that this bond remained intact even during the alleged disagreements related to O'Brien's aspirations with Jimmy Hoffa over their  own future desires within the Teamsters Union.  

 

Because of their many years together and the likelihood of Jimmy Hoffa’s need to restore relationships with his once trusted allies, we believe O’Brien cannot be excluded from the narrative. His part in the plan may have been to pick up Hoffa and drive him to the supposed meeting site. He may have not known what would happen after doing so but would have quickly learned of it and possibly panicked. Or, he may have known about the plan and cooperated due to external pressure coming from the others involved. Another fact to consider is O’Brien’s behavior reported by the Hoffa family immediately after the disappearance.  James P Hoffa Jr. went on record and shared publicly some of these details. The Hoffa’s believed O’Brien knew something and was hiding it.  It ends up by O'Brien's own admission they were right about this. We know it is a fact that Charles Chuckie O’Brien was operating back and forth between the LCN Giacalone's and those close to Jimmy Hoffa.  All of these reasons combined, lend to the conclusion that O’Brien was involved in some way.  

 

From what is known about him, Chuckie O'Brien strictly adhered to the LCN's "Omerta" code.  On several occasions it appeared he would have to have known some details but vowed he would never divulge such secrets.  It was most likely the Omerta code and his tight relationship with the Giacalone family, along with "Tony Jack's" earlier involvement with Chuckie's mother Sylvia, that kept him alive for so many years.  Mob attorney Frank Ragano learned these facts about O'Brien and his part in the scenario from Mafia kingpin Santo Trafficante shortly before he died. Trafficante was considered the wheelhouse man based in Tampa for the major LCN families doing business in Florida and Cuba. He supposedly informed Ragano, all that was required of Chuckie was for him to drive Joseph Giacalone's car to the Machus Red Fox restaurant with other occupants Hoffa would expect and take them to a pre-arranged peace meeting.  He let Ragano know that the old man " Marteduzzo", (Trafficante's name for Jimmy Hoffa), would not have a problem getting into one of Giacalone's cars especially if O'Brien was driving it.  Hoffa would know all the occupants and not suspect any foul play.  It is likely that Chuckie only had to drive the car to a very familiar place just a few minutes away from the restaurant parking lot where Hoffa had parked his own car. The planners of the hit according to Trafficante required O'Brien's participation because of these details. Tony Jack Giacalone traveled to Florida to meet with Tony Provenzano at Joe Sonken's Gold Coast restaurant in Miami.  They went over the details of the plan, and according to some mob sources, this was when Trafficante warned Giacalone: " if O'Brien talks, then he dies".  Tony Jack had given his assurances that Chuckie would never talk.  It seems Chuckie O'Brien was aware of the peace meeting beforehand and probably had no other suspicions himself.  He was led to believe the ongoing feud between New Jersey Local 560 leader Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano and Hoffa was going to be finally settled. It's entirely possible he hoped to have the future chance to be at better terms with his surrogate father too, especially if Hoffa was in fact reaching out to mend some fences with his rival LCN and IBT associates.  We believe after Hoffa was driven to the site of his murder Vito William "Billy Jack" Giacalone and others could have taken possession of his nephew's Joey's car.  O'Brien provided information that he eventually caught up with industrialist Marvin Adell as well as Joseph Valenti as listed in the Hoffex Memo later that day. These ideas have yet to be completely verified through forensics.

 

Hoffa files indicate that the day after Hoffex suspect Salvatore Briguglio was gunned down as he was on a sidewalk in front of the "Benitos" restaurant near the Andrea Doria Social Club in Little Italy Manhattan, NY, the FBI conducted a search of his residence on March 22, 1978, and discovered the private unlisted telephone number belonging to Chuckie O'Brien. Further, this same number was recorded on telephone calls from IBT local 560, (the Provenzano's teamsters local) to O'Brien several weeks before Hoffa vanished.  Jimmy Hoffa’s own car, a green Pontiac, was discovered parked near the Machus Red Fox Restaurant the day after he disappeared. It was obviously within sight of O'Brien while he was waiting for a ride. But he failed to report it was there, even though he had confessed knowing Hoffa was missing the evening before to reporters Jo Thomas and Ralph Orr. Eyewitnesses described the other car that Hoffa got into matching the one belonging to Joey Giacalone. O'Brien was identified as the driver and there was no "violent" abduction at the scene. (Another reason to include O’Brien). The FBI made several attempts to duplicate the movements of O'Brien on the day Hoffa vanished, using the time and places O'Brien provided to the agents, but the recreations always finished with 60 to 90 minutes to spare. Even if he had only 5 minutes to spare, he could have picked up Hoffa and delivered him to known suspected meeting locations nearby. O'Brien was seen at the restaurant and descriptions from eyewitnesses connect him as being the same person driving the car Hoffa got into. So, with some of the newer opinions making the attempt to clear Chuckie from any attachment to the Hoffa disappearance, it appears unlikely they hold enough credibility considering the above evidence stated. FBI agent James C. Esposito, who was involved with the search warrant investigation of the car taken into evidence, and FBI Agent Robert Garrity, (the author of the original Hoffex Memo), the document summarizing the first six months of the investigation of Hoffa's disappearance, stand by their conclusions according to a previous referenced source.  Findinghoffa.com encourages our readers and listeners to read this 56-page report made available on our website. Chuckie O'Brien is mentioned more frequently than anyone else being investigated within its pages.

 

O’Brien was involved with the Teamsters for many years. Jimmy Hoffa purchased land in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with profits from the Test Fleet Company (Organized for Hoffa and Owen Brennan in the late 1940s by the two owners and CEOs of a trucking company then of Flint, Michigan called “Commercial Carriers”.  Their names are recorded in U.S. Government Archives as Walter F. Carey, President, and Bertram B. Beveridge, Vice President of the company).  Hoffa later sent Chuckie up to this remote area property to supervise the construction of a Hunting Lodge/Teamsters ‘get away’ place, called the “Lake 13 Hunting and Fishing Lodge”.  This place is documented in the McClellan Hearings of the 1950s and the Test Fleet trials of the 1960s. Chuckie was well acquainted with Hoffa's dealings involving these properties and their connections in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  O'Brien had often accompanied JRH to his cabin close by on Tepee Lake.

 

It was many years afterward O’Brien became disenchanted with Hoffa and began to move closer to those opposing Hoffa's efforts to make a comeback with in the IBT leadership.  At some point in the early 1970s, after Hoffa's sentence was commuted by President Nixon, Chuckie became at odds with him.  It is believed the conflict was due to Hoffa’s intent to go against O'Brien's LCN friends the Giacalone's.  It additionally seems that Hoffa's had intentions to prohibit Chuckie from any further advancement in both the IBT leadership or among the ranks of Local 299 in the Detroit area. He apparently wanted him transferred to an assignment further away from the area thus making it difficult for O'Brien to have continued access to the Detroit Family LCN.  Hoffa had concerns for the welfare of Chuckie's own biological children after O'Brien's divorce from their mother too. Even so, this disagreement was probably not enough to erase their very close longstanding historical bond. It appears they still were able to be on speaking terms as is revealed next.

 

Chuckie was living with Detroit area industrialist Marvin Adell for about a year before the time of Hoffa’s disappearance.  He became acutely aware of the 1974 disappearance of Lawrence Adell who was Marvin's nephew.  O'Brien appealed to Hoffa to assist the Adell family and see if he could do anything to expedite finding what had happened to the young Adell boy.  This was still fresh on their minds when Jimmy Hoffa did not come home himself on July 30th, 1975.  These details suggest O'Brien was still on speaking terms with Hoffa.  Hoffa wanted his own involvement with the Adell's left out of the press.  But it ended up the story came out that Hoffa had once been involved in a legal scrape with one of the kidnappers of Larry Adell. While O'Brien was out begging for rides and living in Adell's basement he was definitely looking to better his position in the Teamsters Union and improve his financial situation. He also had issues with the current IBT President Frank Fitzimmons who was planning to transfer him to Alaska. Reports are that Chuckie spent a few days there and returned to Detroit. Shortley after Hoffa disappeared Chuckie was transferred to Florida instead. He also had a huge increase with his personal income which some suggest was an arrangement to keep him quiet about what he may have known.

 

It is easy to surmise even with a strained relationship with Hoffa, that Chuckie O'Brien was used perhaps as a “patsy” in the plan to get rid of him. This "idea" is also referenced in the Hoffex Memo. We believe once O'Brien understood he had participated in the disappearance of his surrogate father Jimmy Hoffa; he tried to cover his tracks. In 2025 we were able to interview former Detroit Free Press reporter Jo Thomas who had come forward with crucial information regarding Chuckie O'Brien. She had witnessed on the late evening on July 30, 1975, O'Brien arriving at the door of her apartment in Grosse Pte., MI​. Chuckie O'Brien shared with her "details" that no one could have known but a person who was involved with Hoffa's disappearance.  O'Brien also provided the account over her home phone to Detroit Free Press editor Ralph Orr.  Next, Jo Thomas supplied all these important details to Robert Ozer, the U.S. Attorney who later ran the Federal Grand Jury into the Hoffa Disappearance in 1975. Recently Steve Drummond of "Finding Hoffa" was able to bring these same details to the attention of Hoffa's son James P Hoffa and assist with arrangements to put him in touch with Jo Thomas to obtain verification from her directly. Drummond additionally has made connections with author David Tubman regarding the eyewitness account of Tubman's parents seeing Chuckie O'Brien driving Joey Giacalone's 1975 Maroon Burgundy Mercury Marquis south bound on Telegraph Road with several occupants. This information corresponds with the eyewitness account provided to the FBI and the Federal Grand Jury investigation in 1975 from Holbert Hall O'Dell. Mr. O'Dell of Royal Oak, MI was a truck driver and an IBT member of Jimmy Hoffa's own Local 299. He was also heading south bound on Telegraph Road (as were the Tubman's) and when he passed the Machus Red Fox, a car matching the description of Joey Giacalone's car, pulled out and almost collided with O'Dell's truck. He stated he saw Jimmy Hoffa in the back seat and three other men in the car. He later identified O'Brien as the driver of the car.  When he could get no response with the FBI tip line, he called James P Hoffa who informed them of his account. Holbert Hall O'Dell is quoted in the recovered FBI "Hoffa Files" as saying: "There's no doubt in his mind" who he saw that day. This information was published in the Detroit Sunday Journal, August 3rd-9th 1997 Pg 15. O’Brien himself was nowhere to be found for a few days following the Hoffa disappearance. He was supposedly on a delayed honeymoon with his newly married bride. Later he provided numerous versions of his activities and whereabouts to the FBI. His story kept changing and these actions led them to making him a prime suspect. Nevertheless, to this day, the Hoffa children, who grew up with O’Brien, insist he knew details that could explain the facts associated with their father's death and what happened to his physical remains.

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Events in 2019 were revealed earlier from a book written by a stepson of Chuckie O'Brien's with a much different opinion.  The publication attempts to make a case to completely exonerate him. But one could easily ask: Who's more credible? Is it Jimmy Hoffa's own biological children who were present during the actual events of 1975?  Jimmy P. Hoffa Jr. and Barbara Hoffa Crancer certainly knew what their surrogate "foster brother" Chuckie was like. They immediately suspected his involvement with their father's disappearance. Or does it make more sense to go with Chuckie's stepson, 44 years later with quite the opposite view of him?  It seems to Findinghoffa.com that the original investigators, the information from Jo Thomas, coupled with the Hoffa family provide a clearer picture of those events. 

 

The ensuing evidence obtained through the confirmation of Hoffa's DNA found inside the car O'Brien said he had professionally cleaned and detailed further adds to picture. Even Chuckie's so called car wash credit card receipt was dated but not time stamped.  The receipt could have easily been reproduced due to the nature of the mechanical apparatus used to print out carbon copies back then.  People who may have lost their carbon copies could obtain another by having an employee dial back the credit card machine's date and run the credit card through for the customers misplaced records.  It happened frequently for those having to keep business expense travel voucher records in the 70s. Marvin Adell later that same day got his own car washed with O'Brien according to testimony. A regular car wash could be processed by any employee, but the employee assigned to specifically detail cars denied cleaning the interior of the Joey Giacalone Mercury in question and denied seeing O'Brien for that job when interviewed by the FBI.  The day Joey Giacalone's car was taken into evidence, Chuckie's fingerprints included on trash found under the front seat, suspected fish blood stains, and Jimmy Hoffa's DNA were still present. Findinghoffa.com became aware of the early reports that some of this evidence may have originally been sent to a new Michigan State Police crime lab. Now more modern means could be used like the technology of "M-VAC" on the car still held in evidence. We have been talking to a forensic specialist who is certified in the use of this technology, and it is likely to produce a definitive DNA collection more precise than what was available in the past. This could give us a picture of who else was in that car and more importantly, who was not.

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Along with eyewitness testimony that a person matching Chuckie O'Brien's description was driving the car with Hoffa as a passenger on that day, his stories were unsubstantiated as to his true whereabouts.

The 'alternative timeline' provided has room for a quick ride from the restaurant to the suspected murder house. O'Brien had refused several times to take a polygraph administered by the Department of Justice. Yet a staged lie detector test administered on the Maury Povich show was certainly not enough to satisfy the DOJ.  They still wanted to administer their own tests under circumstances best determining the validity of the results.  It appears they made the right move from what we have discovered. We have consulted a licensed polygraph expert who has administered numerous examinations for multiple agencies including the FBI. His credentials are impeccable. Staged events like the one on the Maury Povich show are not the proper venue for such examinations and could easily be inaccurate under such circumstances. Additionally, we have one person who is scheduled for a polygraph examination. We hope the results will assist in expediting a needed search warrant in 2026.

 

Looking at Chuckie's actions and some of the other things he had done for his mob friends it seems to be difficult to exonerate him from any of this.  His stepson admitted O'Brien once obtained a human head from a cadaver and had it delivered in a package along with a threatening note to one of the former Detroit newspaper editors. What kind of person would do such a thing? If he did something like that, he was certainly capable of driving his surrogate father from a place he often visited to another place a few minutes away. In the 1990s O'Brien was banned from IBT union involvement due to a list of over ninety infractions, many of them in association with a list of known mobsters, some being Hoffa suspects. The several versions Chuckie O'Brien provided to the FBI in August of 1975 were, and still are, full of discrepancies.  Thus, to this day, it appears there is still not enough credible information to overturn and fully exonerate O'Brien as a suspect.  We point out also that the "opinion" of one particular agent in the FBI, decades later, cannot erase all the facts taken into evidence at the very beginning of the investigation by those authoring the Hoffex Memo.   

 

Lastly O'Brien, while discussing what he knew about the Hoffa disappearance, had previously said these words to his stepson Jack Goldsmith, as reported in an interview by: Errol Morris (a film director often covered by "the Atlantic") stated on "Air Mail" Dec. 28, 2019:

 

O'Brien said to Goldsmith: "Yeah, Of course I knew more, dumb ass.  What do you think?"

 

Goldsmith replied: "I can't believe you're not going to tell me about it. I can't believe you're taking it to your grave."

 

O'Brien said: "Believe it." 

 

Chuckie O’Brien, no matter what the opinions are about him, was a key person and a possible source of information. We look at O’Brien as one of only a few individuals that could have provided some missing details of this mystery but refused to do so.  He died February 13th, 2020, and took his secrets with him to the grave as he promised.

 

 We gathered additional information from Hoffa’s autobiography: “Hoffa the Real Story” which was completed one month after he disappeared by biographer Oscar Fraley along with the published biography: “Hoffa”, written by Arthur A. Sloane “. And our own interviews with reporter Josephine "Jo" Thomas- Detroit Free Press, New York Times etc., and author of: "Striving: Adventures of a Female Journalist in a Man's World a True Story".  David Tubman author of: "Jimmy Hoffa is Missing-'the Gap'".

​Telephone conversation from Jimmy Hoffa's son James P Hoffa.  Other: confidential informants.

 

(C)  Steve Drummond 2026   www.findinghoffa.com