Jimmy Hoffa to the U.S. Senate in the 1964 election. Hoffa spent the next three years unsuccessfully appealing his 1964 convictions. Appeals filed by his chief counsel, St. Louis defense attorney Morris Shenker, reached the U.S. Supreme Court. He began serving his sentences in March 1967 at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. Just before he entered prison, Hoffa appointed Frank Fitzsimmons as acting Teamsters president. Fitzsimmons was a Hoffa loyalist, fellow Detroit resident, and a longtime member of Teamsters Local 299, who owed his own high position in large part to Hoffa's influence. Despite this, Fitzsimmons soon distanced himself from Hoffa's
Jimmy Hoffa assaulted. The threats from the mafia that they would get rid of Hoffa were taken very seriously; Hoffa's son is quoted as saying "Dad was pushing so hard to get back in office, I was increasingly afraid that the mob would do something about it." There had been three visits in a short time frame to Hoffa's home at Lake Orion and one trip to the Guardian Building law offices by Anthony Giacalone, an alleged kingpin in the Detroit Mafia, and his younger brother, Vito. Friendly with Provenzano and believed to be related to him, their avowed purpose in coming