Allen Dorfman (1923, Detroit, Michigan – 1983 Chicago, Illinois) was an American attorney, and a leading official of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). He was a close associate of longtime IBT President Jimmy Hoffa. Dorfman was convicted on several felony counts, and was violently murdered in 1983.
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Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1923 to a working-class family, Dorfman attended the University of Michigan School of Law, graduating in 1933.[citation needed] (This isn't possible. He couldn't have graduated law school when he was 10 years old).
Dorfman rose to prominence during labour unrest following World War II, and by the late 1950s was a close cohort of IBT President Jimmy Hoffa. Dorfman's rise coincided with enormous expansion in Teamsters' ranks, along with spectacular growth in the union's pension funds, which eventually came largely under Dorfman's administration. Dorfman worked as co-counsel for Hoffa's legal defense team in the "Test Fleet" prosecution brought against Hoffa by the Justice Department, then headed by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. After the trial resulted in a hung jury in December 1962, Dorfman, along with other Hoffa allies, was investigated for jury tampering. Charges were never brought against Dorfman himself in this case. Jimmy Hoffa, however, was later indicted for jury tampering and was found guilty of this crime in 1964.
Alleged ties to organized crime dogged Dorfman during his time as a Teamsters' leader, as he was the nephew of the Detroit-based gangster Paul "Red" Dorfman. Dorfman, based mostly in Chicago, was eventually indicted, along with several other Teamsters' leaders, for embezzlement from the union pension fund, in 1970.[1] Dorfman and Hoffa ran for several years a large-scale program of unsecured loans from Teamsters' pension funds to major figures in organized crime.[2] This prosecution resulted in his conviction, and Allen Dorfman was sentenced to one year in federal prison.[3]. He was again investigated in 1973 on similar charges, related to payoffs given to have the Teamsters represent agricultural workers in California, in place of the United Farm Workers Union.[4]
He was subsequently convicted in December 1982, along with Teamsters' president Roy Williams, for conspiring to bribe Howard Cannon, the Democratic Senator from Nevada. Just before his sentencing, scheduled for Jan. 23, 1983, he was murdered in an Illinois parking lot in what was described as a gangland-style execution, presumably to keep him from cooperating with authorities to avoid a possible 55-year prison sentence.[5][6]
The character of "Andy Stone" (played by Alan King) in the 1995 film Casino was based upon Dorfman. Also, Allen Dorfman was portrayed by classically-trained actor Brian Dennehy in the 1983 made-for-television miniseries "Blood Feud," which depicted the conflict between Jimmy Hoffa and Robert F. Kennedy.
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