Partin was the business manager of the five local
IBT branches in
Baton Rouge for 30 years. In 1961, he was charged by the union with embezzlement as union money was stolen from a safe. Two key witnesses in the
grand jury died. He was indicted on June 27, 1962, for 26 counts of embezzlement and falsification and released on bail. On August 14, 1962, Partin was sued for his role in a traffic accident injuring two passengers and killing a third. He was also indicted for first-degree manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident. He also surrendered himself for aggravated kidnapping. Partin was secretary-treasurer of Local 5 in Baton Rouge. In June 1969 Partin was indicted by a grand jury on five counts of conspiracy and extortion, with bond set at $25,000. He was eventually convicted on the third try in February 1973 after two mistrials. He was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice through witness tampering and perjury in March 1979. Partin pled
no contest to numerous other corruption charges in the union, including embezzlement, and was released to a
halfway house in 1986. Partin had been recruited by the government as an informant after he was arrested on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter. He struck a deal with the government that he would inform on Hoffa during his Nashville trial and report what he said. Hoffa began to suspect that one of his associates was an informer for the federal government. One figure he suspected was Partin. On 7 November 1963 Hoffa ally
Dusty Miller called and made an appointment to see
Walter Sheridan, aide to Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy. Towards the end of their meeting Miller brought up Partin and questioned why he hadn't been prosecuted yet despite his indictment. Sheridan recalls that, "He had been trying to feel us out about Partin...we had passed the test....we felt it was likely that they were checking out different people". There was talk that Garrison intended to
subpoena Partin. Partin later told the journalist
Dan E. Moldea that as Hoffa was appealing the verdict in his bribery trial, Garrison was investigating him. He stated to Moldea that Hoffa's lawyer,
Frank Ragano, called him and informed him that he could get Garrison to back off if he signed an affidavit recanting his testimony. Partin refused. Ultimately, Partin was never subpoenaed nor indicted by Garrison. In the 1970s Partin told the journalist
Dan E. Moldea that Hoffa,
Bill Presser, and
I. Irving Davidson "bought a bunch of arms and were selling them to anyone who wanted them in Cuba. They bought some planes from the army surplus, and they were ferrying these weapons and planes from Florida to Cuba". However Davidson denied this, although he admitted he sold "a tremendous amount of tanks and whatnot to Batista in 1959" and that just before Batista fell he "delivered a big package" to the Cuban dictator. Partin stated "I was right up there on several occasions when they were loading the guns and ammunition up on the barges".
Assassination plot In September 1962 Partin told the authorities that Hoffa had discussed with him an assassination plot against Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy. According to Partin, he travelled to Washington to see Hoffa at the Teamsters headquarters and while in his office he asked Partin if he knew anything about
plastic explosives. Partin quoted Hoffa as asserting "I've got to do something about that son of a bitch Bobby Kennedy. He's got to go". The plan he said they discussed was to throw a plastic bomb at his car or at his house in Virginia. Partin underwent an FBI-administered polygraph test two days later, which he passed. When the allegation was released to the public in 1964, Hoffa called it "nonsense", stating "I may not like him very much, but I certainly would not plot to kill him." After the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Partin's allegation received renewed attention. In the days after the assassination, Bobby Kennedy and White House Chief of Staff
Kenneth O'Donnell made contact with associates to discuss the possibility of Teamsters or organized crime involvement. Charles Shaffer, an attorney in the Justice Department, was arranged to be appointed to the staff of the
Warren Commission so that the possibility of Teamsters involvement could be watched. In the latter half of the 1970s the
House Select Committee on Assassinations was set up to re-investigate Kennedy's assassination. Partin was interviewed by committee staff on 20 July 1978. He told them the same thing as he had said to the FBI in 1962. Partin believed that Hoffa had approached him because of his belief that Partin was close to figures in the
New Orleans crime family. The Committee concluded with regard to the Bobby Kennedy plot that it was real, but added that it "did not uncover evidence that the proposed Hoffa assassination plan ever went beyond its discussion". In the end, with regard to the assassination of President Kennedy, the committee "uncovered no direct evidence that Hoffa was involved in a plot" and expressed that it "strongly doubted" that Hoffa was involved in any such plot to kill President Kennedy. ==Later life==