O’brien, Hoffa sidekick shown in Scorsese movie, dies at 86
BOCA RATON, Fla. — Charles “Chuckie” O’brien, a longtime associate of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa who became a leading suspect in the labor leader’s disappearance and later was portrayed in the Martin Scorsese film “The Irishman,” has died.
O’brien’s stepson, Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, said in a blog post that O’brien died Thursday in Boca Raton, Florida, from what appeared to be a heart attack. He was 86.
O’brien was a constant companion to Hoffa in the decades when the labor leader developed the Teamsters into one of the largest and most powerful unions in the nation from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.
After Hoffa’s still-unsolved disappearance in 1975, O’brien became a leading suspect, when the federal government publicly accused him of picking up Hoffa and driving him to his death.
FBI agents questioned O’brien about the death at least a dozen times.
In an interview in 2006, he denied having anything to do with Hoffa’s disappearance and said he didn’t think the mystery of the union leader’s death would ever be solved.
O’brien said he viewed Hoffa as a father figure. He was a child when Hoffa took him in, along with his mother.
Hoffa was Teamsters president from 1957 to 1971. The FBI has said his disappearance was probably connected to his attempts to regain power in the union.
It was known that Hoffa intended to testify before the special U.S. Senate investigative panel known as the Church Committee about Mafia involvement in U.s.-backed plots to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro, O’brien said.
O’brien was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1933. As a young child, he moved to Detroit with his mother after his father abandoned the family, and O’brien’s mother became friends with the Hoffa family.
When Hoffa became president of the union, O’brien became his special assistant at age 23, according to Goldsmith.
O’brien is survived by his wife, Brenda, a daughter and four sons and stepsons.