I was at the Archives of Michigan this last Saturday, looking through the Detroit Recorders Court misdemeanor books for 1939 on a wild goose chase. The pages are unindexed and are in order of the date of the hearing. Since I didn't know if the person I was looking for was even in there, I had to look at each entry on each of the 540 or so pages of the books. Then on page 473 a name caught my eye. It wasn't the name I was looking for, but people have been looking for this person for years. I found Jimmy Hoffa! (see image below)
Turns out Jimmy and two others were brought in for "Interfering with a person in the lawful pursuit of his avocation". Jimmy and one of the others were found not guilty, not so for the other guy. He was fined $10 (equivalent to $168.95 in today's money) which is marked as "Paid". We might not know where Jimmy is today, but we know where he was on October 9, 1939, in the Detroit Recorder's Court!
Turns out Jimmy and two others were brought in for "Interfering with a person in the lawful pursuit of his avocation". Jimmy and one of the others were found not guilty, not so for the other guy. He was fined $10 (equivalent to $168.95 in today's money) which is marked as "Paid". We might not know where Jimmy is today, but we know where he was on October 9, 1939, in the Detroit Recorder's Court!
Photo Credit: Daniel Earl 2016
RSS Feed
