"[T]here should be a concerted effort to persuade the law-enforcement community to get a search warrant and perform an excavation at the former PJP Landfill, aka 'Brother Moscato’s Dump,' in Jersey City, New Jersey," the author, Dan Moldea, wrote on his Facebook page.
Pinning down the location of the former Teamsters president's remains has been a macabre parlor game in North Jersey ever since his disappearance in Michigan under mysterious circumstances on July 30, 1975. Various theories have suggested he was killed by organized crime figures who'd infiltrated the North Jersey labor movement, or that his body was buried somewhere in the region, including under an end zone of the old Giants Stadium.
Interest in Hoffa's fate has been rekindled with the release of Martin Scorcese's The Irishman, starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino as Hoffa. The movie, which is already out in theaters, is scheduled to be released on Netflix Wednesday.
Moldea praises the artistry of the film but also says the premise -- that Hoffa was killed by hit man Frank Sheeran, played by DeNiro -- amounts to a " false-fact-filled fantasy."
Moldea, who has been investigating the case since the day Hoffa went missing 44 years ago, said in a Fox News special that testimony recently provided by a man whose father was a part-owner of the landfill "was the most promising I had ever seen or heard with regard to a possible site of the grave for the ex-Teamsters boss."
Frank Cappola told Moldea that the 50-acre PJP landfill alongside the Hackensack River was where his father, Paul Cappola, said Hoffa was buried. Cappola was not directly involved in organized crime, Moldea added, but circulated among the crime figures who controlled the region's waste management industry. One of Cappola's partners in the landfill was Phillip "Brother" Moscsato, a reputed Genovese crime family member who worked for another underworld figure, Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, who controlled a notorious Union City union, Local 560.
Moldea, who said Cappola provided him sworn testimony and also spoke on video,. is urging authorities to refocus their efforts on the site, which is now a wildlife refuge.
"Let’s not allow this wonderful motion picture with its extraordinary cast to define the true history behind the Jimmy Hoffa murder case. Let’s collect the available evidence to help determine what is real and what is not.
Let’s solve this [expletive] case now," Moldea wrote.
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