Carey Associates Enter Guilty Pleas In Teamster Probe Ex-Campaign Manager, Two Consultants Cite Dnc Ties In Court

Signaling the expansion of an already far-reaching investigation into Teamsters President Ron Carey’s re-election campaign last year, the union leader’s former campaign manager and two outside consultants pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges in an election finance scheme.

The development points to an intensified federal grand jury scrutiny into possibly improper financial dealings between the Carey campaign and leading Democratic Party fund-raisers as well as with top AFL-CIO officials. In separate court appearances, two of the three figures who pleaded guilty cited connections between their efforts and the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton-Gore campaign and the AFL-CIO labor federation.

Thursday’s guilty pleas also raise legal questions about Carey and further doubts about his ability to hold on as president of the Teamsters, the nation’s biggest private sector union. Carey’s 52 percent-to48 percent re-election victory in late 1996 over challenger James P. Hoffa was voided last month by a federal election overseer, Barbara Zack Quindel.

She currently is considering for a second time whether Carey should be disqualified from an upcoming rerun election because of his possible involvement in campaign finance wrongdoing. Carey has denied any knowledge of improprieties.

Pleading guilty in New York Thursday to conspiring to illegally divert Teamster funds into Carey’s re-election treasury were Jere Nash, the former Carey campaign manager, and Martin Davis, a Washington political consultant. They admitted to funneling funds to the Carey campaign through a complex of political groups.

Michael Ansara, the owner of a Massachusetts telemarketing firm that did business with the Teamsters, pleaded guilty to creating a shell company that served as a conduit in the scheme. All three have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, and all also are expected to help Quindel in her separate inquiry.

“These defendants have victimized the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the election process,” charged Mary Jo White, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York at an early evening news conference. “The crimes are very serious and galling because of their potential to undermine union democracy.”

“You can’t use union funds to help the candidacy of a union officer,” she added.

In the revelation with the broadest political implications, the court papers stated that in June 1996, Davis proposed a mutual-assistance pact between the Teamsters and the Democratic National Committee.

Davis, with the agreement of Nash, sought to use potential contributions from the union to induce the Democratic National Committee, in exchange, to raise money for Carey’s campaign.

According to the court papers, Davis had several conversations with a former official of the Clinton/Gore 96 Re-election Committee and with an official of the Democratic National Committee, who agreed to find a donor for Carey’s campaign in return for Davis’ help. The Democratic officials were not identified.

After that scheme fell through, court papers charged that Davis spoke with others, including the former official of the Clinton-Gore campaign and the DNC official about finding other donors for Carey in exchange for Teamsters Union contributions. It was not indicated if any of the plans with the Democrats ever were carried out.

DNC officials Thursday distanced themselves from the illegal contribution scheme. “No plan to raise money in exchange for Teamsters’ contributions to the DNC was approved or implemented by the DNC,” said DNC spokesman Steve Langdon.

The White House said Thursday that it was following the court matter but found no connection to any of its officials. “As best as we can determine, no one in the White House knew of or participated in any of the alleged plans in this matter,” said White House special counsel Lanny J. Davis.

If the growing grand jury and election officer investigations lead to Carey’s disqualification to run in the new election, Hoffa, son of the legendary Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, is considered a near-certain bet to win. Hoffa lawyer George Geller said Thursday’s developments mean that “Ron Carey has one foot on the grave, and the other foot on a banana peel.”