Morris Shenker, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetMorris Shenker
American lawyer
Date of Birth: 10-Jan-1907
Date of Death: 08-Aug-1989
Profession: lawyer
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn 
About Morris Shenker
- Morris A.
- Shenker (January 10, 1907 – August 9, 1989) was an American lawyer best known for his connections to labor leader Jimmy Hoffa and Teamster funding of Las Vegas in the 1960s. Shenker was a Russian Jewish immigrant who arrived in St.
- Louis in 1922 with limited English.
- He was educated at Washington University School of Law, and set up law practice in 1932.
- Shenker built a reputation as a successful defense attorney, raised money for the Democratic Party and for Israel, and co-founded the Dismas House charity in St.
- Louis. Shenker first came to national attention during the Kefauver Hearings in the early 1950s, in which he represented a number of underworld figures.
- From 1962 Shenker represented Jimmy Hoffa, and in 1966 became Hoffa's chief counsel. In 1970 a year-long Life Magazine investigative report accused him, as head of the St.
- Louis Commission on Crime and Law Enforcement, along with the city's mayor Alfonso J.
- Cervantes, of both having "personal ties to the underworld." The magazine alleged that Shenker controlled the massive $700 million Teamsters Union Pension Fund and its investments, most notably in Las Vegas but also in San Diego (through developer Louis Lesser), New York City, Kansas City, and elsewhere.
- Shenker himself assumed part ownership of the Dunes Hotel and Casino from the 1970s to 1985.
- Shenker tried to develop a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, also called the Dunes Hotel and Casino, but it was never completed.During the 1970s, Shenker borrowed more than $200 million from the pension funds of labor unions that he influenced.
- He borrowed more than $160 million from the Teamsters pension fund, $43 million from the Culinary Workers pension fund, and $23.5 million from Pipefitters Local 562.
- In 1984, Shenker filed for bankruptcy after a $34 million court judgment against him by the Culinary Workers pension fund.
- In February 1989, Shenker was indicted by a grand jury, but was not tried because of his health.On a local level, Shenker and Mayor Cervantes were part-owners of the mid-town St.
- Louis landmark Continental Life Building, along with businessman Harold Koplar, owner of independent television station KPLR-TV and Shenker's brother-in-law.
- Shenker's wife, Lillian Koplar Shenker, had also attended law school at Washington University, and became a judge in her own right in the St.
- Louis Court of Criminal Corrections. Shenker died of pneumonia, at his daughter's house in Santa Monica, California, after a long illness.
- Fictionalized versions of Shenker appear in the 1961 film Hoodlum Priest (as "Louis Rosen", founder of a fictionalized Dismas House), and in the film Casino.
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