Michael Rudy Tham

Michael Rudolph Tham (May 30, 1923 – October 5, 1998), sometimes known as Rudy Michael Tham or Rudy Tham, was a San Francisco Teamsters Union leader with alleged mafia connections.

Early life Tham was born in May 1923. He was a native of California, and an accomplished boxer who won an amateur welterweight title in 1941. Local 856 went on to become, under Tham, the first San Francisco Union since the 1930s to sign contracts in Chinatown, and went on to have thousands of members.

San Francisco Fire Commission In 1966, Mayor John Shelley appointed Tham to the San Francisco Fire Commission.

1972 In 1972, Tham was charged with conspiring with "convicted labor racketeer Anthony DiLorenzo to extort a $190,000 contract from a national air freight company by calling a Teamsters Union strike." However, the case was dismissed due to the Justice Department's delay in bringing the case to trial.

1979 Tham was indicted in 1979 on federal charges of "embezzling $2,790 in union funds and causing false entries to be made in union records." He was convicted and sentenced for 6 months prison, and fined $50,000. Tham appealed, but lost. and Federal District Court Judge, Robert Aguilar, on racketeering charges. It was alleged that, on behalf of Mr. Tham, Judge Aguilar attempted to influence another Federal District Court Judge, Judge Stanley A. Weigel, "who was hearing the probation violation case against Mr. Tham" the prior year

Tham appealed, but again, lost.

In 1975, Mr. Tham, it is alleged, was helping Australians, including Riley, with negotiating a take-over of the Howard Johnson casino in Las Vegas.

On another occasion, Tham was photographed in San Francisco with Csidei together with Jimmy Fratianno. Prior to this, Tham visited Australia in 1974 and, according to the National Times, "contacted New South Wales organised crime figures."

In the case of US v Mangano and Gavarenti (July 1982), Fratianno gave evidence stating that Tham had introduced him to the Australian, Sir Peter Abeles, director of Thomas Nationwide Transport. Mr Hawke, then President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, was en route to Vancouver to attend a conference of the Socialist International congress and had a stop-over in San Francisco.