A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to index FBI documents on its investigation of Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance 15 years ago Monday, a ruling the former Teamsters leader's family hailed as a victory. U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh ordered the government to prepare within 30 days an itemized list off all documents related to a freedom of information request by the family. The government must provide a detailed justification for any documents it wants exempted, Limbaugh ruled. ``Our family is extremely grateful. Fifteen years have gone by without them telling us what they know,'' said attorney Barbara Crancer, who sued the government for files on her father's case in February 1989. ``We've waited so long to hear something,'' she said. Crancer said it was ``pretty ironic'' the ruling Friday came just before the 15th anniversary of Hoffa's July 30, 1975, disappearance. ``I don't think the judge planned it that way,'' she said. Calls seeking comment from FBI spokesman John Anthony and Justice Department attorney Henry Fredericks were not immediately returned. Hoffa, 62, vanished from a restaurant parking lot in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Township. Federal investigators have said they believe he was murdered but couldn't release their files because their probe was continuing. Hoffa built Detroit's Local 299, a tiny Teamsters unit, into a 15,000-member local, and became president of the international union. In 1958, he was hauled before the U.S. Senate rackets committee and accused of running a ``hoodlum empire.'' Nine years later, Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering and fraud involving the Teamsters Central Pension Fund and received a five-year federal prison term. Under a sentence commutation he received from President Nixon in 1971, Hoffa was barred from returning to office in the Teamsters until 1980. When Hoffa vanished, he was contesting that provision in court. His son, Detroit attorney Jimmy P. Hoffa has said he thinks his father was killed because he was trying to return to union power.
