A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.
—THOMAS MANN
New Jersey stinks. All the politicians steal. I never met a straight politician the whole time I was in New Jersey. They must hafta screw ’em in the ground when they die.
—MEL WEINBERG
Whir. Buzzz. Click.
Telephone propped to his ear, Mel Weinberg glared malevolently at the tape recorder on his desk at Abdul’s Long Island office. The tape was at an end. Shit! He fumbled, one-handed, to insert a new cassette.
“What was that noise?” asked his caller, New Jersey lawyer Alexander Feinberg.
“Nothin’,” Weinberg replied quickly. “The microwave oven just went off. Them damned things make a lotta noise.”
“You have a microwave oven in your office?” Feinberg asked incredulously.
“We gotta,” Weinberg assured him. “We got packages comin’ in from all over. Sometimes me and Tony is here until midnight workin’. We get food sent in and warm it up in the oven.”
They went on to other subjects, among them the financial enrichment of Feinberg’s close friend and business partner, Harrison Arlington (Pete) Williams, Jr., the senior United States Senator from the state of New Jersey.
The conversation concluded, he hung up and loosed a torrent of invective at the tape recorder. Always breaking or screwing up. Either the damned machines didn’t start until partway through a conversation, or they stopped just when things were getting interesting. And those warning buzzers . . . ! How in hell did the government expect someone to think, talk and change tapes, all at the same time? Cheap fuckin’ equipment, he mumbled to himself. Nixon didn’t have to get up every half-hour and change the Watergate tapes. He got the good stuff and we get the crap. Idiots!
Weinberg had been irritable lately. For most of his life, he had called his own shots. Now, he had the uneasy feeling that events were beginning to control him. He had been forced to put his Long Island house on the market. Too many hoods had visited his home during the earlier stages of Abscam. Good was concerned that Marie and his son might be in danger when the investigation finally surfaced and arrests were made.
Another thing bothered him. Too many bosses were horning in on Abscam. John Good and Tony Amoroso had won his complete trust. So had Eastern Strike Force boss Tom Puccio and his aide John Jacobs. With them, he felt part of a team. No favorites, no punches pulled, let’s get off our asses and get the crooked bastards. But, as the investigation moved into New Jersey, the Justice Department had ordered Puccio and the Bureau to coordinate with U.S. Attorney Robert J. Del Tufo in Newark. Del Tufo, a Democrat, had sent two of his assistants to a recent Abscam coordinating meeting. Weinberg had felt hostility. After the meeting he had prophesied to Jacobs: “Watch out for them. They’re trouble.”
Deep in thought, Weinberg swiveled in his executive chair and stared out the window. He felt a sense of dejà vu. How many Abscam gambits had he plotted gazing out the same window? Spring 1979 was flipping her skirts. The geese overhead were honking their way back north. There was a soft green on the trees. The thawed earth in the fields had a smell to it. But the change in season passed unnoticed by Weinberg.
Senator Harrison Arlington Williams, Jr. He rolled the name over in his mind, savoring it. Waspie, educated, powerful. A biggie. He dredged the Senator from his memory of the Florida boat party. Very proper, concerned with appearances, quiet, almost vacuous. Weak personality, a piece of fluff, vulnerable to dominant people and ambitious friends. Typical of many former alcoholics, warm wax waiting to be impressed. But the Senator was hungry. Weinberg had smelled it that night.
Washington had given the green light on Williams. There were enough indications, the higher-ups had decided, that the Senator might not be as pure as his publicity releases painted him. Weinberg mentally ticked off the indicators as he doodled on a scratch pad.
The introduction was key. The introduction had been arranged by Mayor Errichetti, clearly a crook. Alexander Feinberg had been identified by Errichetti as Senator Williams’s front man. The Mayor had been right. At his first meeting with the Abscam group at Cherry Hill, Feinberg admitted that he was fronting the Senator’s interest in a Virginia titanium complex. In Florida, Feinberg had done most of the talking for Williams. The insulation was obvious.
Another factor was the context in which Senator Williams lived and worked. Weinberg had learned to his advantage as a swindler that people frequently tailor their moral standards to the level set by their friends and business associates. The first step in this process was known as “going along.” Later, it would be explained as “just doing what everybody else is doing.” The more widespread the corruption, the more businessmen and politicians claimed justification to be corrupt.
Senator Williams, Weinberg knew, was a total creature of the New Jersey Democratic organization, one of the most corrupt political parties in the country. Good and some of the other FBI agents had given Weinberg a sketchy outline of the system. Errichetti and other New Jersey politicians were completing his education.
The New Jersey Democratic organization, which the Senator represented, had been molded in 1949 as an alliance between the party and the mob by former party boss John V. Kenny of Jersey City. Kenny had shaped and ruled the party for nearly twenty-eight years. While he held power, the state was for sale. The mob moved at will. Kenny had finally been jailed for corruption during a brief period of reform along with his political satraps, Mayor Hugh Addonizio of Newark and Thomas Whelan of Jersey City. But he had set the tone of the interaction between mobsters and politicians for years to come.
Following Kenny’s demise, the reformers had quickly been absorbed and digested by the organization. Now, things were back to normal. Many of the thirteen high state, legislative and city officials on the bribe list that Errichetti had given to Weinberg had been handpicked for office by Kenny. Other Kenny men were now judges, prosecutors and Congressmen. Just last week, Weinberg recollected, Errichetti had offered to bring in the state Democratic chairman for a bribe. Senator Williams had been Kenny’s man in Washington.
Another indicator, Good had told Weinberg, was the proposed mining deal itself, and the people apparently involved in it with Williams. Particularly interesting to Good and the Bureau was the Senator’s association in the package with New Jersey garbage contractor George Katz, a known bag man for corrupt officials.
To Weinberg’s practiced eye, the Virginia titanium deal looked like a scam. The mine and processing plant were located at Piney River in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Both had been sold out cheaply to other parties years before by the American Cyanimid Corporation. The current ownership and option agreements were murky. On paper, the two principals were Katz and Henry (Sandy) Williams III, who was a close friend of the Senator’s. Secretly sharing their interest, at no cost, were Senator Williams and Alexander Feinberg, who was handling the legal work.
The four men proposed that Yassir lend the group $100 million to purchase American Cyanimid’s huge processing plant in Savannah, Georgia, and for clear title to the mine and smaller processing plant at Piney River. This deal, they claimed, would give them a virtual monopoly on titanium in the U.S. The Senator, himself, had said that the rare metal was vitally needed by the government for the construction of submarines and other defense projects. With the titanium monopoly, they predicted, they would make a fortune.
Weinberg quickly dismissed Sandy Williams as a loser. He had been the publisher of a newspaper that went under; he had tried to build a gambling casino on an offshore barge that sank; and he had been beaten up by two hoodlums who were his associates in a platinum importing scheme after he had balked at their attempt to shake him down for $100,000. Then, he had gotten involved in a company known as Biocel.
Sandy Williams had sold stock in the company, which proposed to build a new kind of waste disposal plant in northern New Jersey. He even got an $18 million loan for the project from the state economic development agency. But he was enjoined from selling more stock after the proposal went belly-up because of community opposition. A campaign opponent later charged that Senator Williams personally cleared the way for the state development loan to Biocel. He also revealed that the Senator’s wife, Jeanette, held stock in the firm given to her at no cost by Sandy Williams.
George Katz, however, was a different matter. The aging businessman had become a millionaire through a series of corrupt deals with New Jersey Democratic officials spanning thirty years. He had only been indicted once, for fraud on state highway contracts. Katz had earned a solid reputation as a stand-up man with New Jersey politicians, when he had refused to testify against his partner, a county political leader, in a deal that could have spared him indictment. The charge was later dropped on a technicality. Since then, Katz had harvested a bonanza of municipal contracts, including a scandalous kickback deal with Kenny and Jersey City Mayor Whelan.
Katz had another business edge, as he later disclosed to Weinberg on tape. He was a close friend of underworld financial wizard Meyer Lansky and Pete La Placa, who at the time was a leading figure in the New Jersey Cosa Nostra. Katz’s firm handled garbage collections in Newark, Jersey City and a number of other New Jersey communities. He told Weinberg that he had garnered his municipal contracts by paying bribes to elected officials. He termed the practice “doing the right thing.”
Strange business partners, thought Weinberg, as he sat gazing out his office window. His mind flashed back to the scene on the boat. He had been talking to the attorney Feinberg and Senator Williams in the spacious forward stateroom of the Left Hand at Delray Beach.
Weinberg: One fellow [in the mine venture] I don’t know, uh, and I don’t want to say yes and no, ’cause I’m not sure.
Senator Williams: Georgie?
Feinberg: Georgie Katz?
Weinberg: Yeah.
Senator Williams: He’s the guy . . . he’s got the resources.
Feinberg: He’s got the money.
Weinberg: Yeah, but unfortunately, he’s also got a bad reputation.
Feinberg: Well, he . . .
Senator Williams (laughs): Ahhh.
Feinberg: You know . . .
Senator Williams: He lived . . . I’ll tell ya. I don’t know George very well. I know quite a bit about George.
Feinberg: He’s really a nice guy.
Senator Williams: Uh, he is a nice guy and he’s a generous guy and he, uh, he was in a business in a community and he was doing business the way business is done in a community in that business. I mean nothing venal.
Feinberg: He’s in the garbage business.
Senator Williams: Yeah, nothing venal, you know. But, uh, now and again, uh, people, you know [inaudible].
There had been considerable head-scratching about the Williams situation after the Florida party. Why was the Senator keeping his interest in the mining venture secret? Why was a corruptor like Katz keeping the venture afloat with his own cash? The Senator had put in no money; he had rendered no services. Why had the other partners given him an equal share in the deal?
The team—Tom Puccio, John Jacobs, John Good, Tony Amoroso and Weinberg—went back to the tapes. One thread, it was discovered, ran through the tapes: The government was in desperate need of titanium. Williams was the fourth- or fifth-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate and had the ear of President Carter and Cabinet members. Slowly it dawned on the small Abscam group. Senator Williams was the key to government contracts and defense contractors who worked for the government. That was why he had been made a partner in the deal. And that was why his interest had to be kept secret.
Williams would be committing a Federal crime if he had agreed to use his position as a Senator to help the mining venture in return for a share in it. Now there were two major problems facing the investigators. It would be difficult to prove Williams’s actual interest, which was hidden by his attorney Feinberg, whose interest was also hidden. The second problem involved legal proof that the Senator had actually taken his interest in return for using his influence on government. It was one thing to know that something was corrupt, reminded Good, but quite another to make a criminal case.
Weinberg had wrestled with a solution. “Let’s form a new corporation to handle all of their mine deals,” he suggested to Good. “We’ll tell them that Errichetti is our partner in everything and that me, Tony and the Mayor won’t get Yassir to come up with the bread unless we get a piece of the action. That way, we can issue some of the corporation stock to the Senator and we can ask him what he’s gonna do for us with the government. He’ll have to tell us why he deserves a free ride. With something like that on tape, the Pooch has it made.”
The audaciousness of the idea appealed to Good. Many of the details would have to be worked out in the future. For example, if the Senator accepted the stock in his own name, he would expose his interest and lose his value to the corporation as an influence peddler. Still, Good thought, the idea was basically sound. And it was typical Weinberg. Impale the mark on the spike of his own greed.
“Let’s try it,” said Good.
• • •
Now, Weinberg stared blankly at his office window and plotted his moves. He had just given the good news to Senator Williams’s attorney and front man Alexander Feinberg. Yassir would loan $100 million to a new corporation that would buy the American Cyanimid plant in Georgia and own the Piney River property. But the loan would be made only if Weinberg and Amoroso approved it. The price for approving the loan, he told Feinberg, would be a secret interest in the corporation for himself, Amoroso and the Mayor. Yassir, he warned, would not know about the kickback.
Feinberg, as Weinberg had predicted, was delighted. Weinberg had frosted the deal by agreeing to give highest priority to another package being offered by Feinberg. The lawyer wanted Abdul to handle the financing for the construction of the proposed Dunes hotel and casino in Atlantic City. The key person in the Dunes package was Morris Shenker, owner of the Dunes in Las Vegas, who had gotten his money in the past from Jimmy Hoffa’s scandal-scarred Teamster welfare fund.
Deciding to give the Mayor a share in the mining corporation had been a master stroke, Weinberg mused. Now Errichetti would be on the hook for nearly $17 million—his share of the Yassir loan to the new corporation. Already, the Mayor was on the phone with Feinberg and Sandy Williams. He’d get everybody moving. Oops! He’d almost forgotten. He made a note on his pad. Good was interested in learning more about the garbage rackets. He’d introduce George Katz to Errichetti. It might be rewarding.
As spring quickened, so did Abscam’s pace. Packages were flowing in from New York, Florida, Long Island, Atlantic City and the rest of New Jersey. Feinberg and Errichetti wanted Abdul or Yassir to loan money to the Garden State Racetrack in New Jersey. Errichetti said he would get a law through the legislature granting the track special tax relief.
In Florida, Weinberg went house-hunting. On Long Island, Marie complained that the volume of calls to the house from Abdul clients had turned her into a switchboard operator. In one phone conversation, Errichetti pushed loan packages for the track, Bob Guccione’s penthouse casino, the titanium mine, and a waterfront condominium project in Camden. He also said he had more casino sites for Yassir in Atlantic City and he wanted to set a date for a meeting with the state Democratic chairman.
Flying back from Florida, Weinberg arranged a meeting between George Katz and Errichetti at the Holiday Inn in Atlantic City. Errichetti agreed to give Katz the Camden garbage collection contract and Katz agreed to “do the right thing” by the Mayor. (Katz later told Weinberg he had loaned the Mayor $20,000.) Errichetti had an even bigger proposal for Katz. He said that he was close to incoming Philadelphia Mayor William Green and City Council President George Schwartz. How about, he asked, a garbage district that would involve all of Philadelphia and southern New Jersey?
Errichetti intimated strongly that Schwartz’s support for the project could be bought. Abdul or Yassir could finance the waste-disposal facilities for the huge district and Katz’s company would hold the collection contract. Philadelphia, the Mayor admitted, would have to fire its municipal sanitation employees if it wanted to switch over to private collection. Katz, Weinberg, Amoroso and Errichetti would share in the profits.
Weinberg groaned when Good told him that copies of the garbage tape would be forwarded by the Justice Department to the United States Attorney in Philadelphia. “Not another boss,” he complained. “That’s the problem with you, Mel,” grinned Good. “You’re too good at your job.” But he calmed Weinberg with the assurance that all Abscam assignments would still flow through Puccio and himself.
One of Abdul’s persistent callers was the man who had brought the Mayor to the attention of the team in the first place, Bill Rosenberg. He continued to worry that he was being cut out of his split on deals involving Mayor Errichetti. He was right, but Weinberg gave him the stall. One of the deals that Rosenberg complained of was the mining venture with Senator Williams.
Rosenberg: That’s a beautiful deal. How the heck do you pay off these guys . . . ?
Weinberg: What do you mean, pay off the guys?
Rosenberg: Pay off Errichetti and Williams.
Weinberg: Well, they get pieces of it [the corporation].
Rosenberg (pregnant pause): I see.
Weinberg: And, ah, you know, this is one of the things that we gotta work out.
Alexander Feinberg called several days later and said it was important for Weinberg to tour the American Cyanimid plant in Savannah which they intended to buy. Sandy Williams and Katz would make the trip with him. Weinberg didn’t want to go. “What the fuck do I know about chemical processing plants?” he asked Amoroso. “Fake it,” said Tony. “You’re good at that.”
SCENE
Weinberg stands in the huge shipping yards of the American Cyanimid Corporation in Savannah. He is dressed in a rubberized hat, coat and boots. He wears a huge pair of goggles. All are required protection against poisonous fumes. He chews on his unlit cigar. He has just completed a tour of the processing plant with his two companions. Making a huge show of taking notes, he has asked to see the company books and has been told he must put up $50,000 for the privilege. Now he watches the final product being packaged for shipment. The only company employee in view is a black laborer filling sacks. He nudges George Katz.
“Hey, George, if this plant’s such a big deal, how come they got only one schwartzer doin’ all the packagin’,” he asks.
“How do I know,” answers Katz. “Maybe it’s the off season. Maybe it’s like the garment industry.”
“Screw them, then,” exclaims Weinberg. “If an outfit this big has an off season, I ain’t payin’ no fifty grand to see the books. What do they take us for, schmucks?”
The Mayor was on the phone nearly every day bubbling with projects and ideas, all designed to flow money his way. He constantly urged a meeting of the principals in the mining venture so that a corporation could be formed and the Yassir loan processed. He nagged for a meeting with the state chairman and offered to introduce Weinberg to some of the state and city officials on his bribe list. He was particularly insistent that he meet Jersey City Mayor Thomas Smith.
From the moment Errichetti had given Weinberg the bribe list, members of the Abscam team had pondered possible approaches to the state and local officials. Errichetti had been bribed for his help in getting a casino license. So had Kenneth MacDonald. It would seem reasonable to the targets that Abdul or Yassir would pay bribes for assurances on that score, given the New Jersey state laws. Everyone wanted to get into the casino business. But what could the two Arabs want in the other New Jersey cities, such as Jersey City? In other words, what pretext was needed to widen Abscam’s horizons?
One of the team members had the answer: approval from both the state and various cities for check-cashing businesses. The team would let it be known that they wanted the businesses to wash money skimmed from the casinos or used to bribe public officials. Weinberg had passed the message to Errichetti, who had scouted the state and returned with the names of more officials who would take bribes to smooth the way. At the top of his new list was the name of State Democratic Chairman Richard Coffee.
On May 23, 1979, Weinberg and Amoroso met at the Holiday Inn in Atlantic City for a long conversation with George Katz and Mayor Errichetti. It was a wide-ranging discussion of the garbage business, the mining corporation, political corruption in New Jersey and the proposed check-cashing business. At one point Katz discussed his warm relationship with Jersey City Mayor Thomas Smith.
Errichetti: How do you get along with Tommy Smith?
Katz: Fine. I just got another five-year contract with him.
Errichetti: Tommy is pretty close to me. Dave Friedland [State Assemblyman] and I are pretty close. Wally Shiel’s [Hudson County Democratic leader] pretty close to me. Yeah [inaudible], we got a good alliance going . . . Well . . . that’s where Alex [Feinberg], Pete [Senator Harrison] Williams, and the whole bunch [inaudible]. True professionals. Today you got a bunch of cocksuckers. Okay.
Katz: Everybody is trying to put the other guy in jail today. See . . .
Errichetti (interrupting): Unbelievable!
A week later, the prospective partners in the titanium venture held their first meeting in an elegant setting over luncheon at New York’s Hotel Pierre. Much of the meeting was spent discussing ways in which a corporation could be set up and shares issued. Senator Williams wondered aloud as to whether he should openly declare his shares.
Senator Williams: My situation is this. I’ve got to, uh, under the law disclose an interest when I have an interest. But, up until now, there’s been no defined interest [in the original mining venture]. In what? In ideas basically. We’ve dealt with no corporate stock.
Katz: But when and if you do.
Senator Williams: When that happens that’s part of my law [inaudible].
Feinberg: Well, that’s what you . . . and I have to discuss. We have to examine. We’re going to do that.
Senator Williams: But there’s no sense doing anything yet before we really know. No reason for me to do it [inaudible] May fifteenth because it’s just for the record.
Everyone: No! No!
Weinberg: You can put anybody down.
Feinberg: I know that. I understand that. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of [inaudible].
Weinberg, mounding butter pats on his fourth hard roll, was expert at cutting through verbal garbage and fixing on the real meaning of what had been said. He thought about the conversation that had just taken place. The Senator didn’t want to declare the shares, but he needed assurance from his partners that he was acting correctly. He had gotten it. And Feinberg, the foxy old lawyer, had smoothly telegraphed the Senator’s course of action.
The Senator said little else at the luncheon, deferring to Feinberg when questions were asked. At one point, as several conversations went on at once around the table, Weinberg asked the Senator if he would use his influence to get government contracts for the fledgling firm. The Senator, Weinberg insisted, said that he would.
Elated, Weinberg returned to the Abdul office. “He went for it,” he told Good. But the luncheon tape was a nightmare. Time and again, simultaneous conversations on the tape made parts of it inaudible—including the Senator’s answer to Weinberg’s crucial question. Weinberg was outraged. “I’m gonna make a bonfire of them fuckin’ [tape] machines,” he threatened. Good and Amoroso calmed him. There would be other opportunities, they said.
In a telephone critique of the luncheon to George Katz, Weinberg complained: “I think the Senator’s a little punchy.” Weinberg repeated to Katz Williams’s promise to go after government contracts. “But, you know, he don’t put no oomph into it when he says it . . . When the Senator says it, you know, you look at him and say, ‘Hey, schmuck! Do you really mean it?’”
The Abscam team held another strategy session. The problem was clear: It was not enough to have Feinberg’s word that Williams would use his influence with the government. If there was to be a criminal case against Williams, the Senator would have to say it on tape. The solution: tell the partners that Yassir would not finance the corporation unless Williams personally made such a promise to Yassir himself. The FBI would videotape the meeting.
The success of the sting, Weinberg knew, depended on greed. If the Yassir loan came through, the Senator, Feinberg, Sandy Williams, Errichetti and Katz would each own a $17 million share in a $100-million titanium complex. Amoroso and Weinberg had pretended that they would share the remaining $15 million interest in the venture. This would represent the bribe paid to them by the Senator and his partners for persuading Yassir to approve the loan.
Each of the partners, except for Senator Williams, had done something to earn his share in the venture. Sandy Williams and Katz had put together the original package. Feinberg was doing the legal work and fronting the Senator’s interest. Errichetti had introduced the group to Weinberg and the other Abscam agents, making the Yassir loan possible.
Senator Williams was in the deal because of an implicit understanding. Weinberg was sure he would use his influence with the government to help the new corporation in any way possible, including contracts for the titanium. This assurance, however, had not yet been made by the Senator. Such discussions, Weinberg had learned, are considered boorish in the world of political corruption. If a government official accepted a free interest in a firm that depended on government-related contracts, his agreement to help get those contracts was understood.
Boorish or not, Weinberg had been told, the Senator would have to spell out personally his agreement to use his influence with the government in return for his interest in the corporation. Otherwise, no criminal case.
All of the Senator’s partners in the deal were hungry men, Weinberg calculated. And they were crooked. Neither the Senator nor his partners had batted an eye when Weinberg had demanded the kickback for getting the loan approved. If they were told that the loan was conditional on the Senator’s spoken promise to get government contracts, they would make Williams spell it out.
Meanwhile, however, there had been a strange phone conversation with Feinberg. The attorney said that the Senator had been thinking about holding his stock in his own name. What did Weinberg think? The question fortified Weinberg’s conviction that the Senator was not operating with all of his marbles. If he were publicly associated with the titanium venture, how could he approach the government for contracts?
Weinberg: He can’t report [his interest] . . . if he reports, then he can’t do nothin’ for us.
Feinberg (thoughtfully): That’s correct, right.
Weinberg: I mean that. What the hell we got him in there for?
Feinberg: That’s right . . . Okay . . . I’ll take care of it. I’ll work it out another way. Okay.
Then Weinberg called the Mayor. He reminded Errichetti how much money was at stake in the deal for all of the partners. He said that it was vital that the Senator state exactly to Yassir what he was going to do for his part in the business.
Weinberg: Right . . . now we just want . . . you know, he’s getting twenty percent. What’s he going to do for it?
Errichetti: Okay. . . . I’ll get hold of Pete right away . . . I’ll talk to him myself . . . head-to-head.
Immediately afterward, Weinberg called Feinberg. He told the lawyer that he was relaying a message directly from Yassir.
Weinberg: He says without Pete Williams, we got no deal because the whole thing is gettin’ . . . them government contracts.
Feinberg: Uh, ah, okay. You don’t have to discuss that any further. I understand that.
The next day, Weinberg was back on the phone with Errichetti. Again he stressed the importance of Williams and the contracts to the entire deal.
Weinberg: But we wanna make sure that the Senator knows, [even] if he did say it in front of us [at the Hotel Pierre], that this is where he’s gettin’ his twenty points for.
Errichetti: Pete, I can talk to Pete, like I’m talking to you.
Weinberg: Well, you should get hold of Pete and straighten him out.
Errichetti: All right, sure.
Weinberg smiled as he hung up. He could picture the scene. Phones jangling in Senator Williams’s office as one partner after the other called demanding that he lay it on the line for Yassir. At this point, he was sure, none of them worried about stripping the Senator’s insulation. They just wanted a shot at Yassir’s millions. So did Williams.
This would be the test, thought Weinberg. He was totally convinced that the Senator was a crook. But until now, he had been a timid, sneaky one, hiding behind Feinberg and others. There would be a difference this time. Williams would have to stand bare-assed naked in Macy’s window and do his own dirty work. It made no difference if Williams didn’t keep his promise to Yassir. It was enough that he make the offer. That was the crime.
George Katz reported back in mid-June. Feinberg, Sandy Williams and Errichetti had all talked to the Senator. He would personally promise Yassir that he would work to get government contracts for the corporation. He would do better than expected. Weinberg still worried. He was convinced that the senior U.S. Senator from the state of New Jersey was a klutz.
Weinberg set the meeting with Yassir for June 28 at a Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, just over the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. He orchestrated the suspense. Yassir would fly in the night before on his own jet and secrete himself in the hotel, registering under an assumed name. Weinberg told a grateful Feinberg that Yassir wanted to protect Williams at all costs. Only Yassir, the Senator, Amoroso and Errichetti would be present. It would be a meeting both discreet and safe.
Once more FBI Agent Farhardt was flown to New York from Ohio and briefed on the impending encounter at Abdul’s Long Island office. As in Florida, he would pretend to understand English but speak it poorly. That way, Amoroso could ask the key questions and Senator Williams and Errichetti would have to do most of the talking.
Weinberg, always the detail man, argued that Farhardt needed a more expensive suit to play the part of a wealthy Emir like Yassir. Good had seen it coming and groaned. But before Good could respond, Weinberg was out the door with Farhardt in tow. He took the agent to Marsh’s, a luxury men’s store in nearby Huntington, where he outfitted him in a $500 suit and matching accessories, and charged the purchases to the Suffolk FBI office.
As the day of the meeting approached, Weinberg fretted that Williams would blow his speech to Yassir. So did Errichetti who had had long talks with the Senator. They discussed it on the phone.
Errichetti: What you have to do is get back to me to give me the proper speech. Now, he [Williams] knows he’s got to guarantee. He knows he’s got to say that.
Weinberg: Right.
Errichetti: He knows he’s got to say “I’m the man or this thing doesn’t move or work . . . I guarantee all the contracts, guarantee it’s going to be successful.”
The day before the meeting, Feinberg, Weinberg, Errichetti and Katz gathered in a room at the Marriott and made final plans. Feinberg called Williams at his Senate office and told the Senator: “We’re looking forward to seeing you tomorrow . . . You’ll get your briefing as you’ve already gotten your briefing from Eric [Errichetti], and that’s the key to the whole goddamned thing . . .”
He promised Williams, who expressed concern, that none of Yassir’s staff would be present at the meeting. He added: “You don’t want anybody around, okay? Eric will talk to you before you go in, and just like he said, it’s a bullshit speech. Do you know what I’m talking about? But it’s the key and they’re really excited . . . I’m telling you, it’s gonna [be] beautiful. Life’s gonna be beautiful, pal.”
After Feinberg hung up, the four men once again discussed the necessary elements of the Senator’s speech to Yassir:
Errichetti: He better [be] bright tomorrow.
Weinberg: He doesn’t drink anymore, does he?
Feinberg: No.
Weinberg: Maybe we should give him a marijuana to pep him up.
Errichetti: Oh, no. I’m gonna be next to him. I got the fuckin’ pin [to jab the Senator]. He knows I got a pin next to him. I told him, you make a fuckin’ speech or I’ll pay for the fuckin’ baseball bat.
Later in the conversation, the Mayor told Katz and Weinberg about a recent meeting he had with Senator Williams:
Errichetti: When I went there, he didn’t say two fuckin’ words. I got Pete by the fuckin’ throat . . . Let me tell you something, cocksucker, don’t you go fuckin’ this thing up. I got a chance to make a million fuckin’ dollars, you prick. All you’re gonna do is give a fuckin’ speech, like, give ’em your life. Not much left to say. You’re gonna fuckin’ say it. I don’t give a fuck. Never mind about doing it. You’re gonna fuckin’ say it . . . And he turned fuckin’ white and I revived him. Okay. And I’m gonna be sitting next to you, put a fuckin’ pin up your ass, and you’re gonna tell him [Yassir] that without you, there ain’t no fuckin’ mine. Forget it, I’m the fuckin’ man. You gotta say, “I, not me, me, I, you, and nobody else, and I’m gonna be your fuckin’ bird dog.”
Errichetti was exaggerating the physical aspects of his session with Senator Williams, Weinberg suspected. But he had told Williams what to do and he was going to sit at his side in the meeting with Yassir and make sure he did it. Williams had been primed by his own partners to pander his Senate seat for money. And he had agreed to do it. That’s why he was coming to meet Yassir at the Marriott the next day.
Weinberg slept fitfully that night. He got up at 3:00 A.M. and flipped on the TV. Nothing. Shit! He’d forgotten that the nation’s capital is a tank town. Despite assurances from all the partners, Weinberg worried that the Senator would blow his pitch, even with Errichetti at his side. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he made an unusual decision for a man who had always warned his fellow swindlers never to overplay their hands. He had intended to say just a few words to Senator Williams before he went upstairs to meet Yassir. Now, he decided to give the Senator a last-minute review of the instructions he had already gotten from Errichetti.
When Senator Williams and Errichetti arrived at the hotel, Weinberg was waiting for them downstairs. The ensuing conversation would return to haunt him through the Abscam trials. Defense lawyers, complaining of entrapment and governmental misconduct, would charge that Weinberg had put incriminating words into the Senator’s mouth. If he had done this with Williams, they argued, he must have done the same with the other defendants. Ironically, in his pitch to Williams that morning, Weinberg only suggested that the Senator do what he had already been advised to do by his business partners and Feinberg, his own lawyer.
The conversation began with Weinberg’s instructions to the Senator that he should tell Yassir that he was in the corporation to get it government contracts and without his participation there would be no government purchases. The Senator replied, “Well, that’s why it comes down to metal [titanium] is the big thing. That’s the government’s area.”
Weinberg pressed on: “He’s [Yassir] only interested in you. You gotta tell him how important you are, who you are, what you can do, and you tell him in no uncertain terms: ‘Without me there is no deal. I’m the man. I’m the man who’s gonna open the doors. I’m the man who’s gonna do this and use my influence and I guarantee this.’ Follow me? All bullshit.”
Strong language from an obvious hustler to a member of the United States Senate. But Senator Williams signaled his agreement, rode up the elevator with Errichetti to room 1104, to perform as promised.
Farhardt, looking appropriately wealthy in his Arab headdress and new $500 suit, sat regally in an armchair with Amoroso at his side.
The conversation moved quickly. Amoroso said that he had backgrounded Yassir on the history of the project and told the Emir that its success depended on the power of the Senator and Mayor Errichetti. He asked Williams to explain it personally to Yassir. Williams replied that titanium was in short supply and that the U.S. desperately needed the metal for submarine skins and other defense-related projects. He added:
“. . . if this [titanium deal] can be put together, in my position . . . within our government . . . and knowing, as I do, the people that make the decisions . . . when we got it together, we move. We move with our government.”
Almost, but not quite, thought Amoroso. He asked Williams what he would do specifically.
Errichetti primed the pump:
Errichetti: Well, without the Senator, there is no . . . forget it. There’s no . . . mines and nothing . . . the Senator had the know-how in his position as a United States Senator. You’re what? Chairman of the Labor . . .
Williams: Yes . . . I’ve been there for decades, and, uh, in that position, you come up to those positions and you work with the people that make the decisions.
Amoroso: Right.
Williams: Very close to them. Uh, very close . . . I just completely believe in this one, this whole situation we’ve presented through the mine. With great pleasure, I’ll talk to the President of the United States about it and, you know, in a personal way, and get him as enthusiastic and excited, because we know what our country needs.
The Senator cited his other connections, Vice President Walter Mondale, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense. With these contacts, he said, getting contracts would be no problem. Amoroso skillfully drew the rest out of him. Yes, agreed the Senator, he wanted Feinberg to front his stock in the corporation so that he could not later be charged with a conflict of interest. Yassir beamed his understanding, but said nothing.
The next day Feinberg called Weinberg and reported the Senator’s enthusiastic reaction to the meeting:
“You know, the Senator seemed to get a kick out of his own performance. Because, when he related to me what he said, after each statement he said, ‘And it’s all true.’ He was very excited. Like a kid. He was pleased with himself.”
There was no time for a celebration. Weinberg and Amoroso flew back to Long Island for the long-awaited meeting with Errichetti and New Jersey State Democratic Chairman Richard Coffee. Errichetti had told Weinberg that Coffee could facilitate state permits for Abdul’s planned check-cashing business in various New Jersey cities. He could also, the Mayor said, reach the highest officials in the state for anything the Abdul group might want in the future. The agreed bribe was $50,000, half of which was to be kicked back to Errichetti, who promised to split his half with Weinberg.
Once again, members of Puccio’s staff monitored the meeting from another room. The videotapes whirred. Coffee quickly explained that he was also the paid state official in charge of the State Assembly. He said that he had run the past two campaigns for Governor Byrne and was the Governor’s closest adviser. That wasn’t all, said Coffee. “I walk right in and out of the White House like you walk into your own home.” Pointing to Errichetti, Coffee added, “You know him. He’s given you the word on me. You’ve got to understand, okay. I can deal in anything.”
Amoroso played unconvinced. The proposed bribe was mentioned twice in the conversation. Once Amoroso told Coffee that he was attempting to buy his influence. Later, he said that he was prepared to pay the $50,000. Coffee clearly understood from Amoroso that Abdul wanted the check-cashing licenses to launder the source of money skimmed from the casinos. But he told Coffee that it sounded like it was easy to get such licenses, implying that it was not worth the bribe. Amoroso’s skillful baiting had provoked Coffee’s boasts of influence.
Both Amoroso and his Strike Force adviser in the next room were uncertain as to whether Coffee had violated any Federal law in promising to use his influence with the state banking commissioner to get the check-cashing license. Amoroso was startled when the phone rang on his desk. “Don’t pay the cash; stall him until we check it out,” said the Strike Force attorney. Much to the Mayor’s disgust, the meeting ended with no bribe paid and an agreement to meet again at an unspecified later date.
When the pair left, Weinberg turned to Amoroso and exclaimed, “This guy just offered to sell us the whole state. They’re unbelievable over there. Everybody steals.”
Fresh in his memory was a series of conversations with George Katz. The garbage contractor had said that he was friendly with Mayor Kenneth Gibson of Newark, whom he had rewarded for helping Katz win the city’s garbage collection contract. He said that Gibson had promised him that he would arrange the necessary municipal approvals for Abdul to open a check-cashing service in Newark.
Weinberg had proposed paying Gibson a $50,000 bribe immediately, but Katz cautioned him that it wasn’t done that way in New Jersey. Bribes, he said, were only paid after the favor had been delivered. Katz assured Weinberg that Gibson always kept his promises and always delivered. Weinberg was excited at the information. He had read that Mayor Gibson would be an important leader in President Carter’s approaching reelection campaign. He also had learned that Gibson was under Federal investigation for possible income tax evasion involving his Swiss bank account.
Several days later, Good sat Weinberg down for a talk about a sensitive subject. The United States Attorney’s office in Newark had routinely been getting copies of the Abscam tapes through the Justice Department in Washington. Most of the officials named on the tapes were from New Jersey, including Williams and Gibson. Robert J. Del Tufo and his aides wanted Weinberg to come to New Jersey and work for them directly. Would he?
Weinberg asked if Good would still be his boss. Good hedged. Not as directly, he said. What about Puccio and John Jacobs from the Strike Force? Good explained that Weinberg would primarily be working under the direction of Del Tufo’s assistant Edward Plaza. Weinberg did some fast thinking. He didn’t know anything about Del Tufo or Plaza. But he had learned about New Jersey and its Democrats. And he knew that Senator Harrison Williams had nominated Del Tufo for appointment to his job as United States Attorney for New Jersey.
He told Good: “Tell those shits in Washington that if they send me to Newark, I’ll quit.” Good breathed what Weinberg interpreted as a sigh of relief. “Okay, Mel,” said Good. “Let’s get back to work.” Neither Good nor Weinberg could know that Weinberg’s refusal to work for Del Tufo and Plaza would eventually result in another major crisis for the Abscam investigation.
But there was a more immediate crisis to take their minds off the subject. On July 6, just a week after the meeting with Senator Williams and his state party chairman, Weinberg got an anxious call from Mayor Errichetti asking for an immediate meeting. He met the Mayor at Kennedy Airport.
The Mayor looked frightened. When Weinberg heard his story, he understood why, and almost swallowed his cigar. The Mayor said that a Florida swindler had visited Tony Torcasio, Guccione’s Atlantic City casino manager, the day before. The swindler said he had sought out Torcasio because he had seen him at the Florida boat party. The swindler said he had been working as an informant for the Miami FBI office and had been smuggled aboard the boat for the party by local FBI agents to wander among the guests and pick up information on Florida crime.
The whole party, the swindler told Torcasio, had been an FBI sting. One of the key people involved in the sting, he had reported, was an FBI agent called Tony (Amoroso). Torcasio had asked the informant about Mel Weinberg. Was he an FBI agent? The swindler said that he had asked Tony about Weinberg at the party. He said that the FBI agent had snapped, “He’s just another thief.” Thank God for Tony’s cool, Weinberg thought to himself. Now he was under fire and had to think fast.
The swindler was obviously telling tall stories to get attention from Torcasio, Weinberg told the Mayor. He had known Tony for years and knew he wasn’t with the law. Weinberg suggested that the Mayor warn Torcasio that his source was probably trying to set him up for some kind of scam or shakedown. After all, Weinberg asked indignantly, wasn’t the source a big swindler? The Mayor obviously wanted to believe Weinberg. He promised to warn Torcasio right away. “I’ll tell Tony [Torcasio] to stay away from this guy,” said the Mayor as he left smiling.
For the second time, Weinberg’s instant alibi had saved Abscam from collapse. Errichetti, a streetwise political hustler, had been so artfully hooked by Weinberg that he worked with the Abscam group for eight more months despite a firm warning that he had been sucked into an FBI trap.
A furious Weinberg confronted Good later that day. Good told Weinberg that he had been unaware that the Miami office had sneaked the informer into the party. It had been a mistake and he would have forbidden it, if he had known about it. There had been, he said, a communications breakdown. Weinberg barked profane derision. First Bill Rosenberg spots Margo Denedy’s picture in the newspaper and now this bush league fuck-up. The FBI wasn’t supposed to make mistakes.
The sandy-haired FBI supervisor suddenly looked tired. Almost single-handedly he had sold the Bureau on Abscam, fought for it battle by battle and ruffled some bureaucratic feathers by insisting on a direct line of command to the Bureau’s top brass in Washington. The FBI was the best law enforcement agency in the country, he told Weinberg. But this wasn’t a TV show. The FBI was composed of human beings. Occasionally, they made mistakes. But not often. It wouldn’t happen again.
Staring at Good, Weinberg felt the stirrings of a rare emotion. Compassion. He had come to trust and respect Good more than anyone since his father. He shrugged his shoulders, dropped the subject. “So, what do we do next?” he asked. Good told him. There were some odds and ends on Senator Williams that had to be locked up. Alexander Feinberg was fronting the Senator’s stock in the titanium deal. It would be necessary to show that the Senator had actually gotten his stock shares.
On July 11, 1979, Weinberg, Amoroso and Errichetti met Senator Williams at the Northwest Airlines lounge at Kennedy Airport and gave him his unsigned shares representing an interest of $17 million in the new corporation. The Senator and his wife were about to depart for a three-week tour of Scandinavia and Italy.
Weinberg had done some fancy footwork. He had first called Errichetti and fibbed that a second Arab group believed that the titanium corporation was already in operation and wanted to purchase it at a $50 million profit to Errichetti and the other partners. As soon as Yassir’s loan came through, said Weinberg, they could sell to the second Arab group. It was important, Weinberg confided, that Yassir not be told of the impending sale. Otherwise, he would insist on part of the profits.
Errichetti whooped at the prospect. He was too dazzled by greed to question Weinberg’s fuzzy reasons for wanting the stock shares personally handed to Senator Williams. Once again, the Mayor dominated the Senator. He called him and told him to accept his shares directly. Now, sipping tomato juice in the airport lounge, Williams thawed a little. He said that he was already using his influence for their corporation. He said that the chairman of a large firm had recently come to his office seeking a government favor. The favor-seeker was in a position to do things for the corporation. Williams said that he had granted the favor and used the occasion to express his senatorial interest in the success of the corporation. Gottcha, thought Weinberg.
Things were moving, particularly in New Jersey. Weinberg and Amoroso, faking expertise, pored over prospective casino construction packages from eager builders sent by Errichetti and Feinberg. The Mayor had offered to produce some Congressmen. George Katz was pushing the deal with Mayor Gibson. The forgotten Bill Rosenberg was still on the phone daily, anxious not to be forgotten. The Mayor was making appointments with other New Jersey mayors and reaching out for more casino commission members.
Robert Del Tufo, Weinberg learned, was angry. His assistant, Ed Plaza, had written directly to the Attorney General. The gist of the letter was that unless the United States Attorney’s office in Newark could take over Abscam in New Jersey, he and Del Tufo would regard it as a vote of no confidence. Good replied that Weinberg hadn’t changed his mind. He wouldn’t work for Del Tufo and Plaza. Moreover, he didn’t trust them.
SCENE
It is a sultry August day. Weinberg and Amoroso have come to Atlantic City to discuss a casino builder at the request of the resident FBI agent. They buzz his apartment door and enter. Inside, they find Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ed Plaza and Robert Weir, Jr., from Del Tufo’s office. There is no polite chitchat. Plaza has read the tape of Weinberg’s prep-talk with Senator Williams at the Marriott the month before and angrily accuses Weinberg of setting up the Senator and putting words in his mouth. There is a heated argument. Plaza will later testify that Weinberg claimed there would be no cases unless he put words into the mouths of witnesses. Weinberg and Amoroso will deny it. Plaza demands details on other New Jersey Abscam operations. Both Weinberg and Amoroso suffer instant memory lapses. As Plaza grows more insistent, they stalk out, slamming the door.
Back on Long Island, Weinberg steamed as he related the incident to Good. “What the fuck are these guys, the Senator’s defense lawyers?” he asked. “Those bastards ambushed me and Tony. They’re out to get our asses. No wonder New Jersey is such a mess. Those fucks can’t tell the difference between black hats and white hats. Ain’t we supposed to be the good guys?”
Apparently there was also consternation at the highest levels in the Department of Justice, but for different reasons. Senator Williams was one of the highest-ranking Democrats in the U.S. Senate. He was a close friend of Senator Ted Kennedy, who obviously was going to back President Carter in the primaries. Williams’s support was up for grabs. Any case against Williams, the word filtered down, had better be airtight.
Once again, Weinberg and Amoroso went to work. Weinberg arranged for Errichetti to call a meeting of the corporation stockholders on September 11 at the Hilton Inn at Kennedy Airport. Senator Williams was present. Weinberg proudly reported that his imaginary new Arab group had raised their offer for the titanium corporation. They would pay $70 million over the $100 million corporate loan from Yassir. The difference would be clear profit for the partners.
Then Weinberg gave the details. The new Arab buyers had one major condition. Senator Williams must retain his 18 percent interest in the corporation after the new Arabs bought it. He would keep his interest at no cost in return for his promise to continue getting government contracts for the firm.
Weinberg turned to Williams and said, “I’m gonna be honest with ya, Pete. That’s the only way I’m gonna deal with ya. You’re the one that’s gotta give us the okay . . . If ya have any qualms about it, ya wanna keep [inaudible] makes no difference to me either way. But the whole thing depends upon you to work in the same capacity as ya working for us to get us government contracts . . . Ya do it for them.”
Perhaps the most ill-timed knock on the door by a waiter in the history of law enforcement interrupted the Senator’s answer. But, after a long discussion of tax consequences, it was Senator Williams who made the motion to sell to the new Arab group under the conditions given by Weinberg. His motion passed unanimously. It was agreed that Yassir, who would make the whole deal possible with his corporate loan, would not be told about the impending sale. As the meeting broke up, Williams told Weinberg:
“. . . Communicate with my friend Yassir, who I like. I thought a great deal of Yassir . . . I just have the feeling that we weren’t communicating.”
“I get the same feeling with him sometimes, so don’t feel bad.”
“I like the guy,” Senator Williams said.
“I know ya do.”
Alone with Amoroso later, Weinberg remarked, “This guy Williams is unbelievable. Twice he’s with Yassir. Twice Yassir is a dummy, he don’t say nothin’. If the Senator likes Yassir after that, he must have wet-dreams over Charlie McCarthy.” They returned to the office, convinced that the government now had all the evidence it needed on Williams.
Washington, however, was still nervous. It wanted even more evidence against Senator Williams. “I can’t believe those assholes,” Weinberg complained to Good, recalling that in Pittsburgh, he himself had pleaded guilty to a far weaker government case. But he tried. He told Errichetti that the new Arab buyers wanted a letter from Williams assuring them that he would continue to get government contracts for the firm after they had taken it over.
He had not reckoned on Errichetti’s aptitude for crime. At a later meeting with Errichetti, the Mayor produced the requested letter which he had written on Williams’s Senate stationery, forging Williams’s name. He boasted that a friendly printer had counterfeited the stationery. Weinberg was stymied. He certainly couldn’t tell Errichetti that it was wrong to forge the Senator’s name. Not after all they had done together. He took the letter back to Good. “What a set of balls,” he marveled.
Early in October, Weinberg was half-dozing in a suite at New York’s Plaza Hotel as George Katz droned on about New Jersey politics. Suddenly his eyes snapped open. Katz was talking about a White House attempt to squelch the Federal income tax investigation of Newark’s Mayor Gibson. Amoroso was staring at Katz saucer-eyed.
Katz said he had gotten details of the fix directly from Mayor Gibson. He said that Gibson had discussed his case with the White House and that President Carter had sent him to then Attorney General Griffin Bell for help. The Gibson probe, Katz explained, was being conducted by the tax division of Bell’s office in Washington. According to Katz, Bell told Gibson that he might be criticized by the Republicans if he killed the case in Washington. He said he would transfer it to Del Tufo’s office in Newark where it would be killed quietly.
The strategy, Katz said, was for Del Tufo to invite Gibson in front of a Federal grand jury in Newark without a subpoena and allow him latitude to answer all of the evidence against him. Del Tufo, Katz said, was to “chill” the tax case so that the grand jury would return no indictment. He said everything had gone as planned and Gibson told him that there would probably be no indictment. Katz was pleased at the outcome.
After Katz left, Strike Force attorney John Jacobs bounded from the other room, where he had been monitoring Katz’s taped conversation. “My God,” he exclaimed. “Do you hear that?” Jacobs grabbed the phone and dialed Tom Puccio. He told the Strike Force director to come to the suite immediately. Puccio arrived a few minutes later and played the tape. His face was grim. Orders were immediately issued that the tape was not to be included in the batch of Abscam tapes routinely delivered to Del Tufo’s office.
Weinberg nodded to Amoroso. “I told you so,” he said.
Weinberg had a chance meeting with Mayor Gibson a few weeks later at a cocktail party Abdul held in Atlantic City for New Jersey politicians. Weinberg was outfitted with a “body-tape,” and for once, it worked. Gibson allowed that George Katz was a good man. The Mayor acknowledged that he planned to run for Governor in 1981. Weinberg suggested that the Yassir-Abdul group would help him in the race, and Gibson agreed to the offer. There was a brief conversation about possible Arab investments in Newark and Gibson agreed to a meeting with Weinberg and Amoroso to discuss the matter further.
Mayor Gibson: Okay, we got to start talking about something.
Weinberg: You know, the Arab way.
Mayor Gibson: Oh, yeah.
Weinberg: Well, all right, as long as you understand. I can work any deal you want.
Mayor Gibson: Okay.
The meeting was never to come about. Good, Weinberg and Amoroso were discussing possible approaches a few days later with Puccio, when Ed Plaza from Del Tufo’s office came in. He said that his office had an income tax case against Mayor Gibson and was going to indict him shortly. Any Abscam meetings with Gibson, he warned, might compromise the tax case. After he left, Puccio, helpless to do otherwise, ordered the Abscam team to stay away from Gibson. They were boxed.
No tax indictment was ever returned against Gibson.
It was also during the fall that Senator Williams and his attorney Alexander Feinberg visited Amoroso and Weinberg at the Plaza Hotel. They wanted a $70 million construction loan for the proposed Ritz hotel casino in Atlantic City. The Senator’s wife was a paid consultant to the company that wanted to build and open the casino. Williams said that he had overcome opposition by the Casino Control Commission to the construction plans by secretly visiting Commission Chairman Joseph Lordi, whom he described as “my man.” Feinberg admitted that he had helped by making a similar visit to Errichetti’s pal, Commission Vice-Chairman Kenneth MacDonald.
Weinberg and Amoroso said they would urge Yassir to make the construction loan. Between the titanium corporation and the Ritz casino, Williams and his associates were now expecting a total of $180 million in loans from Yassir. Citing the usual problems with Iranian banks, revolutions, strikes, Arab lassitude and lazy lawyers, Weinberg easily stalled actual execution of the loans until the entire Abscam investigation ended.
But the Department of Justice, expressing increasing nervousness over the Williams case, insisted on one more shot at the Senator. The pending casino loan was used as the excuse. Once again, Farhardt flew in from Ohio with his $500 suit to play Yassir for Senator Williams. On this occasion, he was elegantly situated in a suite at the Plaza. Because an understanding had to be precisely articulated his English had also improved admirably.
Once again Farhardt reclined in an easy chair to hold court. With him was Amoroso. There was no Weinberg lurking in the lobby. He stayed away entirely. Farhardt, pretending to use Berlitz English, would ask the questions directly.
Williams arrived with Katz and Feinberg. The date was January 15, 1980, just two weeks before Abscam ended. All greeted Yassir, who assured them first that the $180 million loan money had just arrived in the United States. Yassir then said that he planned to come and reside in the United States in the near future. He asked Williams if he could arrange legislation to give him permanent status or citizenship. Williams said that it could be done and that he would do it. He added:
“. . . We met in April of last year in Florida. And, er, er, I was impressed with you as a person . . . reserved, er, moderate, thoughtful, and I read sensitivity. Qualities that I had . . . associated . . . with, er, er, good character, and, er, er, interesting and, er, pleasing personality . . .”
Yassir, who graciously told the Senator that he could call him Sheikh, said that he would be willing to pay for the legislation. But Williams, who was eagerly pressing for the loan money, said that he would not take Yassir’s money for pushing his citizenship. He said he would personally steer the necessary legislation through Congress.
The sting had been a masterpiece. Drawing upon his fertile imagination, Weinberg had relied on a lifetime of experience to build the illusion. Time and again he had conjured the targets to jump through hoops, reverse direction and turn inside out. He had created corporations, issued stock shares, inspected books, toured plants, hired hotel suites—all to flush Senator Williams from cover. And he had done so. Now, as he viewed the final videotapes from the Plaza Hotel, he chuckled. Senator Harrison Arlington (Pete) Williams, Jr., had indeed been left standing bare-assed in Macy’s window.
New York Times, Jan. 6, 1981. Following are excerpts from the guidelines issued today by the Justice Department to govern undercover operations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation:
AUTHORIZATION OF THE CREATION OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR ILLEGAL ACTIVITY
1. Entrapment should be scrupulously avoided. Entrapment is the inducement or encouragement of an individual to engage in illegal activity in which he would otherwise not be disposed to engage.
2. In addition to complying with any other requirements, before approving an undercover operation involving an invitation to engage in illegal activity, the approving authority should be satisfied that:
a. The corrupt nature of the activity is reasonably clear to potential subjects.
b. There is a reasonable indication that the undercover operation will reveal illegal activities; and
c. The nature of any inducement is not unjustifiable in view of the character of the illegal transaction in which the individual is invited to engage.
3. Under the law of entrapment, inducements may be offered to an individual even though there is no reasonable indication that the particular individual has engaged, or is engaging in the illegal activity that is properly under investigation.
Nonetheless, no such undercover operation shall be approved without the specific written authorization of the Director, unless an Undercover Operations Review Committee determines . . . that either
a. there is a reasonable indication based on information developed through informants or other means that the subject is engaging, has engaged, or is likely to engage in illegal activity of a similar type; or
b. the opportunity for illegal activity has been structured so that there is reason for believing that persons drawn to the opportunity, or brought to it, are predisposed to engage in the contemplated illegal activity.
4. In any undercover operation, the decision to offer an inducement to an individual, or to otherwise invite an individual to engage in illegal activity, shall be based solely on law enforcement considerations.