
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 12, 1994                   TAG: 9407130066
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

PANEL: HEAD OF TEAMSTERS NOT TIED TO MOB

A panel charged with seeing that the Teamsters Union is cleaned up said Monday it found no evidence that the union's president was tied to organized crime.

The Independent Review Board said evidence uncovered in its investigation did not support charges that could have led to Ron Carey's removal from the union's top leadership position and, possibly, his expulsion from the union itself.

Opponents inside the 1.4 million-member union accused Carey of a variety of infractions, most suggesting some ties to the mob.But the three-member review board, in an 85-page report, said that in each instance it either found no evidence or not enough to prove the allegations.

The panel was formed in 1989 to monitor attempts by the union to stamp out corruption and investigate itself. A federal judge said its job was to rid the union of ``the hideous, malicious influence'' of organized crime.

The board includes former CIA and FBI Director William Webster, former U.S. District Judge Frederick B. Lacey and former United Mine Workers leader Harold E. Burke.

Carey was elected as a reformer to head the Teamsters, but he has been dogged by questions about ties to organized crime. He released a statement saying he had faced ``a smear campaign from opponents of reform inside the union, management and the mob.''

George Geller, a Detroit union lawyer who had filed some of the claims, angrily denounced the decision, saying the board had ``conducted a sham investigation'' and had ``let Carey off the hook with a casual assumption that he didn't know what he was doing.''

by CNB