Flimflam Man

David Halberstam's CBS chronicles do not include the network's latest misadventure in pursuit of news. Two weeks ago Clarence Newton ("Chuck") Medlin, 49, approached a Greensboro, N.C., freelance writer named Patrick O'Keefe and told him that he knew where to find the body of missing former Teamsters Union President James Hoffa. Medlin, a sinister-looking self-professed former hit man, said he had once served as Hoffa's bodyguard and had learned of his old boss's final resting place from the hired killer who put him there.

O'Keefe brought Medlin to Manhattan, where the tipster soon had CBS News executives hoping that he would lead them to the scoop of the year. He threatened network employees with violence if he did not get his way, and emphasized his seriousness of purpose with a demonstration of karate-style kicks. "He's the most terrifying guy I've ever seen," said CBS News President Richard Salant.

CBS had been widely criticized earlier this year for paying as much as $100,000 for an interview with former Nixon Aide H.R. Haldeman. This time, Salant decided to hire O'Keefe as a "consultant," pay him $1,000 to tape an interview with Medlin, and give him $9,000 for the pair to lead a network crew to Hoffa's body, which Medlin insisted lay encased in concrete in 12 ft. of water 2 1/2miles off Key West, Fla. The network stresses that it did not pay any money to Medlin, but O'Keefe says that the two agreed to a 50-50 split.

Shortly before O'Keefe and Medlin flew to join a CBS film crew in Key West, Medlin talked O'Keefe into giving him $8,700 of the money for safekeeping. En route, he persuaded O'Keefe to stay overnight in Tampa. They checked into a motel, and at 4 a.m. Medlin walked out with the cash. For days a diver hired by CBS searched off Key West--in vain. Admitted a philosophical Salant: "We've been had before."

Medlin soon tried the scheme on a New Orleans freelancer and two local newspapers; all turned him down. But a movie critic at one of the papers, the weekly Figaro, tipped off FBI agents, who late last week arrested Medlin in a New Orleans motel. Only $3,100 was found in his room. Medlin was turned over to authorities at a federal prison halfway house in Raleigh, N.C., where he had been serving two consecutive five-year sentences for interstate transport of stolen vehicles before escaping two months ago. Said O'Keefe, awed at Medlin's ability to flimflam network executives: "If he's a con artist, he doesn't need to be in crime. He should be in Hollywood. He would be making a million dollars a year."

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