WASHINGTON -- A convicted murderer who was prepared to tell the Senate about union racketeering and bombings in Nevada casinos refused to testify Tuesday, charging the FBI made 'death threats' against him.
Gramby Andrew Hanley -- serving a life sentence for the 1977 murder of culinary workers union leader Al Bramlet -- said he will cooperate only if the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations extends him the same immunity as the state of Nevada granted.
Hanley, who in a prepared statement admitted committing six restaurant and casino bombings in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, said he is concerned that without new immunity, the FBI will continue a campaign of 'degradation' against him and he could lose future consideration for parole or pardon.
'If I'm going to have a future anywhere down the line, I have got to decline,' he said, speaking from behind an opaque screen designed to hide him from the view of television cameras and the public.
Hanley accused Jeffrey Anderson, Justice Department organized crime strike force chief, of lying to him in Las Vegas. And, without elaborating, he said he was 'subjected to vituperative attacks by the FBI -- including death threats.'
'I intend to help the committee, but I want some kind of assurance I will not be subjected to further degradation,' he told chairman Sen. William Roth, R-Del.
Roth said he would call Hanley back another day, possibly under subpoena.
The subcommittee is investigating labor racketeering in the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union and locals in Reno, Las Vegas, San Jose, Calif., Oakland and San Diego.
In his prepared testimony, released by the subcommittee Monday night, Hanley told of planning and committing the bombings for about $50,000 paid by Bramlet through Tom Hanley, the witness' late father, who with his son pleaded guilty to killing Bramlet.
He said his father told him the international union president, Ed Hanley (no relation), schemed to take control of local union health and welfare funds 'and to sell this and other bargaining rights of the members to the Teamsters.'
Bramlet, head of a union local, 'refused to sign,' Hanley's statement said. 'An enforcer who worked for reputed organized crime figure Tony Spilotro knocked Bramlet off a bar stool one night and told him that he would be killed if necessary ... Later, at the union hall, my dad commented that either they would get the health and welfare package or Bramlet was dead.'
He said he had no knowledge whether his father had a contract to kill Bramlet, but he believed one existed.
Hanley, 42, and his father Tom, a union activist for 35 years who died in federal custody, pleaded guilty in 1978 to the 1977 murder of Bramlet, secretary-treasurer of Culinary Local 226 in Las Vegas.
The statement also said Bramlet lent Las Vegas hotel-casino owner Morris Shenker $28 million to $30 million in return for a $1.5 million kickback.
'The loans were unsecured and the only signature on the forms was that of Bramlet,' said Hanley. 'According to my father, Shenker paid Bramlet between $1 million and $1.5 million in kickbacks for the loans. My father told me he had seen $500,000 in cash at Bramlet's ranch in Needles (Calif.).'
'My dad was upset because Bramlet had not let him be a partof the deal,' he said.
