Frank Sheeran, American union leader and mobster (b. 1920)
Francis Joseph Sheeran (October 25, 1920 – December 14, 2003), also known as "The Irishman", was an American labor union official who was accused of having links to the Bufalino crime family in his capacity as a high-ranking official in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the president of Local 326.
Sheeran was a leading figure involved in the infiltration of unions by organized crime in the 1960s and 70s. In 1980, he was convicted of labor racketeering and sentenced to 32 years in prison, of which he served 13 years. Shortly before his death in 2003, he claimed to have killed Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa in 1975. Author Charles Brandt detailed what Sheeran told him about Hoffa in the narrative nonfiction work I Heard You Paint Houses (2004). The truthfulness of the book, including Sheeran's confessions to killing Hoffa and Joe Gallo, has been disputed by some. The book is the basis for the 2019 film The Irishman directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro as Sheeran, Al Pacino as Hoffa, and Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino.