HOFFA PROBE Informant passed polygraph exam

The farm was owned by a former Teamsters official.
DETROIT (AP) -- The informant described as spurring the search for Jimmy Hoffa's remains on property now known as Hidden Dreams Farm is an ailing prison inmate who, according to his former lawyer, first told the FBI about the location 30 years ago.
In a telephone interview Friday with The Associated Press, lawyer Joseph J. Fabrizio said that in 1976 his client, Donovan Wells, "claimed to have some definite information -- whether it was helpful or not, I have no way of knowing."
Wells "knew everybody with the Teamsters, and I'm pretty sure they knew him," said Fabrizio.
A government investigator familiar with the FBI's digging operation in Milford Township, about 30 miles northwest of Detroit, said Wells was not nearly as forthcoming in 1976 as he has been recently and that his story has "evolved" with additional detail.
Interest in Wells' tip was heightened after the 75-year-old inmate passed a polygraph exam. Authorities think he believes the story he's telling, said the investigator.
The investigator spoke on condition of anonymity because some of the information he was relating comes from records that have been ordered sealed by a federal judge. Among them is an FBI affidavit detailing the basis for the search warrant used to dig up the ground on the horse farm.
Background
Wells, who once lived on the property, was well-acquainted with the owner, former Teamsters official Rolland McMaster, who also owned the property when Hoffa dropped from sight in 1975, Fabrizio said.
A lawyer for McMaster, Mayer Morganroth, said the farm was searched in the 1970s and nothing was found. He confirmed that FBI agents visited the 93-year-old retired Teamster this week, and Morganroth said most of their conversation related to his farm.
Wells is mentioned in a 1978 book on the Hoffa disappearance by author Dan Moldea. The book focuses heavily on McMaster and his long-standing relationship with Hoffa, which wound up with a falling out shortly after Hoffa went to prison in 1967 for jury tampering and fraud.
Fabrizio said Wells owned a trucking company and was never a Teamsters official.
Fabrizio said the information Wells offered the government during plea negotiations in 1976 involved heavy machinery and suspicious activity on the farm around the time of Hoffa's disappearance on July 30, 1975.
Wells pleaded guilty in August 1976 in federal court in Detroit and was sentenced to one year in federal custody in a case involving "theft from interstate shipment," according to court records.
Fabrizio said it was a very good deal, considering the charges, which involved the theft of truckloads of steel belonging to an automaker.
Informant's record
Wells pleaded guilty in 2003 in federal court to one count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute marijuana. On Jan. 15, 2004, he was sentenced to 120 months in prison. Wells is housed at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Ky., and his projected release date is Dec. 27, 2012.
In a motion in 2003 for a reduced sentence, Wells' attorney said he had a heart attack in 1994, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997, suffered three strokes in 2002 and underwent a quadruple bypass in January 2003.
At the horse farm, the FBI's search was in its third day. Agents were bringing in cadaver dogs, demolition experts, archaeologists and anthropologists and suggested investigators might remove one of the three barns.
Able Demolition in Shelby Township is on standby as FBI agents "work their way toward the barn," said Wendy Sitek, an officer manager at Able.
Scientists who have conducted similar searches said they have many tools at their disposal, including ground-penetrating radar and electromagnetic surveying devices along with shovels and probing devices. But unless they have a precise location, their task can be arduous.
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