Distant Thoughts on the Whitey Saga

2013 08 02_3998When I wrote my last post: “Whitey The Ordinary — Just Another Hoodlum Who Didn’t Grow Up” I had no idea of the hiatus that would occur between that post on September 16, 2013 and now. The reasons for the silence are a special assignment I undertook that totally kept me away from the computer and any writing; and on top of that a joyful out-of-state addition to the family.

These events necessitated that I put distance between myself and the subject matter of this blog. Perhaps my post noting the ordinariness of Whitey was an auspicious stepping off point. As time passed and distance widened I began to see more clearly the basic banality of Whitey Bulger the man. Much more interesting than the person are the events that conspired together to take such a commonplace criminal and elevated him to the point he became some sort of criminal extraordinaire. Those are the events I hope to focus my efforts on explaining.

Trying to write anything else about Whitey himself is a waste of time. No man, who has in reality done so little of any merit, has ever had so much trivia written about him than Whitey. What is there about the man that is worth emulating or admiring? Absolutely nothing. He is a debased man devoid of any redeeming qualities.

The only matter of interest that remain is how such a low life came to occupy such a position of prominence. Could it only have happened because of the unique circumstances in Boston? That is a subject worth exploring. But to spend any more time on Whitey the person is of little value.

Now when I think of Whitey I think of how the George Zimmerman affair was thrust into the national spotlight as if gun murders were a rare event in America. In 2011 there were over 6,000 murders with handguns in this country. Zimmerman gained prominence because some made it into a racial murder, that is the white murder of an African-American youth, when that wasn’t the case.  Some suggest that the DOJ added its two cents worth.

Take away the medias shouting and it is just another one of the 367 handgun murders in Florida in 2012. The absurdity of making this into more than it was clearly shows how something quite mundane assumes an air of importance. Two uninteresting persons struggling through life become daily news fodder. As late as this week we find ABC News tells us his wife is having difficulty serving him with divorce papers, his mother-in-law accusing him of stealing a television, and NBC news has all of America listening to his wife spell out their domestic woes.

That is the magic of media. The capability of making a boar into a prince and a sow into a princess. Or, in Whitey’s case, the ability to put a shine on a sneaker.

Another reason to move on is that Whitey is really yesterday’s newspaper that is good for little more than putting aside in its special bin and waiting for the recycling truck to take it away. Whitey is living, if it can be called such, in a 24-hour-a-day well lighted cell with jailers, like voyeurs, watching his every move. His only hope for the future is that his next cell may have a more comfortable mattress. All he is now is a mechanism through which people can make money. He will be sentenced to die in prison.

As a person he should have as much relevance to us as a passing cloud. We’ll read more about him but it’ll all should have as much interest to our lives as George Zimmeman’s wife’s appearances on network television.

Yet we will be treated to news about the victims’ families  looking for more money with the help of the DOJ. We saw how the DOJ in the Caswell Motel case tried to steal a motel from its long-term owner. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it try to seize Billy Bulger’s pension to compensate the victims of Whitey. After all, the prosecutors are convinced Billy had a hand in all these matters.

The recipients of Whitey’s letters from the jail house are seeking to make money off of them. They are offering them on eBay. The DOJ will be seizing them and having its own auction.

We’ll be treated at sentencing time to the parade of family members each clinging to their last minutes of fame gained through Whitey’s notoriety pouring out their venom on him both in court and outside patiently lining up to regurgitate their statements to the television cameras. Their newsworthiness gained through no merit of their own but through their misfortune means they too will quickly fade into obscurity.

Then, of course, we’ll hear of the sentence imposed by the court. It will amount to hundreds of years, as if anything over 5 or 10 for an 84-year-old person matters. Perhaps, some interest will be warranted in the proceedings if Whitey decides to make a statement in his own behalf. And I’d suggest there is a good chance this might happen.

Whitey won’t let the sun go down on him without a final goodbye. He had deluded himself into believing that he has something worthwhile to offer us or that there may by a sympathetic ear to any of his complaints. Why shouldn’t he when so much has been written about him?

I’d suggest that anyone expecting the truth from him should look elsewhere. If he had an ounce of decency he’d leave quickly and silently. It is time to let him go and to try to understand how it was that such a vile person caused such a commotion.  I get the feeling that the Whitey saga was a betrayal of Boston.

 

 

35 Comments

  1. Matt: Everyone should listen to JFK’s 1961: “Secret Societies Speech” it’s on Youtube. He advocates full disclosure by every branch of government, military and civilian. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdMbmdFOvTs&feature=youtube_gdata_player) My friend Lisa just posted it on my Facebook page and I “shared” it with my Facebook friends and with the Public: JFK opposes “censorhip” but asks the Press to decide itself whether some info hurts “national security”. Today, the FEDs have decided most info hurts “national security” and so it buries and hides much. JFK encourages dissent and criticism and quoates “A wise man” who said “An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.”

    • Willliam:

      I’ll definitely watch it but I must remind you that Obama also called for the same openness in government. JFK was very much happy with the self-censorship of the media when it came to his many dalliances. He also went along with his brother Robert to do extensive illegal bugging of people they felt were threats like MLK.

      But going back to 1961 is to another time in America that no longer exists. The laws that have been passed since that time give the federals enormous punitive powers that make just about anything one does into a crime if the federals seek to go after you. Plus as you point out, the federals believe the sports-loving US public is best kept in the dark about matters of important so everything gets classified as secret.

      The problem we have is there are so many involved in keeping things as they are that things keep getting worse. We have the great NSA scandal and the out shot of it is the desire to incarcerate the person who disclosed the extensive abuse for life. Things aren’t good which few seem to care about because it doesn’t affect them personally. It’s not that most of the the people imposing these changes on us are corrupt, it’s more so they are lazy. They want to do things the easy way. I saw that when I worked on the Patriot Act and figured many of the changes were being made because to do it the old fashion way required a little more work. That, of course, was the intent of the Bill of Rights that before the government intrude on someone’s privacy a little extra effort be made to insure it isn’t done without sufficient reason.

      This case involving the DC woman seems to be nothing more than a dispute between her and the cops. She was no threat to the White House or Congress. If the federals can conduct a search of her house based on that, then it’s not far fetched to suggest that if you get pulled over driving in Southie and end up having words with some cops, then your house could be searched by the federals also. What I tried to show is that with this case the idea of having probable cause of a crime has gone down the gopher hole and all that people seem to need is just a wild suspicion.

  2. Matt and Firefly and all who post here: Let’s keep posting until the cows come home. A better metaphor: Let’s keep punching until the Higher Power (the Holy Spirit, not the FEDs) throws the towel in on us in the natural course of human life and human events. Let the Spirit of 1776, as reoounted in “Bunker Hill” suffuse our spirits. Freedom in Boston and for Bostonians and for all Americans and truth from our government and press and integrity and full disclosure by our government are worth fighting for. “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Keep punchin’.

  3. Matt et al.,
    Many of you know what it feels like when a beloved young one doesn’t come home at the established curfew.
    When he shows up, you have decided to just kill him,
    and yet the juices of love and relief are so strong that all you want to do is kiss him about the head,
    you say, “I love you and if you ever do this again, that’s it,”
    like that means anything more than don’t ever do that again.

    Matt,
    This is a tough blog.
    Please, try to tell your loved ones that our loved ones do not understand what in the hell we are doing.
    But this is truly worthwhile.
    We’re trying to work our way through something that attacked our people, our area, our city;
    Boston is the simplest way to say it.
    But Boston is an idea.
    Boston is an idea
    that got trounced.

    • Firefly:

      That’s the idea behind the blog is to work our way through what happened and go back and examine it with a vision not obscured by the people who want to hide their malfeasance. The betrayal of Boston involved allowing the cancer of Whitey and the other gangsters to exist and then promulgating a wrongful version of how it happened.

  4. Matt-

    One thing that does bother me is what NBC (along with other media outlets) managed to do by editing the original non-emergency police call from Zimmerman. If you are not familiar with what happened you can view a link about the edit and aftermath here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/07/14/zimmerman-lawyer-to-move-asap-against-nbc-news/

    What do you think of Zimmerman’s defamation suit against NBC? Will and should he have been considered a public figure at the time the tape was released? How will the court choose if it does make it to trial? How can NBC avoid blame if they have already fired 3 employees over the incident?

    So what if Zimmerman, based on his original account of events and account given during a stress-monitoring test thereafter, (which were essentially the same in every aspect) were telling the truth? The media turned him into a monster for doing what I would hope myself and anyone I know would have done in the same situation.

    To be honest, I do not have feelings one way or the other about the Zimmerman’s ‘not guilty’ ruling. I have come to the conclusion that I do not know enough about the minutes leading up to the shooting to have an opinion. It is the law and it is in place for a reason. Also, Let us clear the air for anyone else choosing to comment here: Zimmerman never used the STAND YOUR GROUND law in his defense. It was purely a matter of self-defense in the court.

    What bothers me is that this could have been anyone. The loss of integrity throughout our “truth-seeking” journalists in this case and Whitey’s are the same on at least one level. Nearly all accept and report a universal truth with inherent flaws, yet none (despite our friends over at Fox who are immediately thrown to the waist-side regardless of what is said)have chosen to dive deeply into this matter. We have a man who’s life will forever be harmed by what happened whether he’s actually guilty or not, and it’s the media’s fault, not that of the DOJ. The only thing the DOJ did wrong was try to prosecute GZ, but then again who applied the pressure for them to do so?

    Having followed the majority over your Whitey posts for over a year now I can’t help but see things in the media that bother me. For example, I recently saw a quote sticking out in a magazine article about Aaron Hernandez (who I am no fan of either, for the record). It said, and is now even included on his Wikipedia page that A FAMILY FRIEND states that he started doing a lot of angel dust, got paranoid and began carrying around a gun at all times. Why are we so quick to accept a source that can only be referred to as a “family friend”? Angel dust was likely replaced with another commercial drug by the time Hernandez hit puberty. The fact that those following the news today need to be fed this nonsense is a tragedy and represents a media presence that has never been so powerful.

    I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on the GZ case. Hernandez is whatever but I could not help but point out the way in which this blog has made me think about how manipulated we all are by media outlets who’s “profit-seeking” journalists could one day do to me what they did to George Zimmerman, or for the purposes of this blog, everyone involved in the Whitey Bulger saga.

  5. Does the government shutdown effect Whitey? If the Marshalls run out of money they can’t pay Plymouth County to house him at the jail. Will the Sherriff be compelled to release the prisoner if no payment is forthcoming? The media claims WB is very powerful. Did WB orchestrate this financial impasse ? Does he control the Congress? BHO claims he is being extorted. Isn’t that part of WB’s m.o.?

    • N:

      I woke up Sunday morning. I went to the computer to check on the news and the first thing I saw was “Shutdown Imminent.” I was initially thrown into a little panic thinking that there had been a lock out in the NFL. Then I read that it was the government that was going to be shut down. I yawned and went about my business like I assume most of America. However, if you want to get the people upset, try shutting down the NFL.

      I assume the shutdown will affect Whitey. It’s not that they will release him, they will stop feeding him. He’s fed with special government food so with the sequester and now the shutdown, he’ll be down to water, which is not federal, and anything that is left over from the state meals, which usually isn’t much. I did check into that to make sure I was correct and I am. Not only that, I have three people who agree with me.

      True, Whitey is in the extortion business but he is far from powerful except in his mind. Sitting in his cell he thinks people really care about his views and he’s spouting them off in his letters showing that he is really an empty suit.

  6. Matt,
    Congratulations. Great news about little Matt, and welcome back to your own blog!
    I’m so happy we can take a look at what happened to Boston; I agree
    that it looks like Boston was betrayed.
    Are we that gullible?
    Or maybe it passed our ability to comprehend that a group of people
    could make decisions to go after a city that was content to mind its
    own business, not hip to the fact that we were being played.

    • Firefly:

      Thanks. It is time we see how the strange confluence of forces created the monster Whitey – sort of similar to the creation of Frank N. Stein. Perhaps Boston was duped due to the egoistic quality of the people who lived here who buy into the idea that it is another Paris or Athens or the hub of the universe. It’ll be a good tale to explore.

    • Um, Matt,
      According to Miss McCoy and Mrs. Casey from the Randall G Morris School in West Roxbury:
      Boston is the Hub of the Universe.
      Period.

      • Firefly:

        I Googled Hub of the Universe. Oliver Wendell Holmes first used it according to an article. But even though a Yankee, of the breed that actually considered themselves a special breed, and I’d not they never considered the other inhabitants of their fair city to be Bostonians, Holmes put it in proper context. He said:

        “A jaunty-looking person, who had come in with the young fellow they call John,–evidently a stranger,–said there was one more wise man’s saying that he had heard; it was about our place, but he didn’t know who said it.–A civil curiosity was manifested by the company to hear the fourth wise saying. I heard him distinctly whispering to the young fellow who brought him to dinner, Shall I tell it? To which the answer was, Go ahead!– Well, he said,–this was what I heard:–

        “Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn’t pry that out of a Boston man, if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar.”

        Sir,–said I,–I am gratified with your remark. It expresses with pleasing vivacity that which I have sometimes heard uttered with malignant dulness. The satire of the remark is essentially true of Boston,–and of all other considerable–and inconsiderable–places with which I have had the privilege of being acquainted. Cockneys think London is the only place in the world. Frenchmen–you remember the line about Paris, the Court, the World, etc.–I recollect well, by the way, a sign in that city which ran thus: “Hotel de l’Univers et des Etats Unis”; and as Paris is the universe to a Frenchman, of course the United States are outside of it.–“See Naples and then die.”–It is quite as bad with smaller places. I have been about, lecturing, you know, and have found the following propositions to hold true of all of them.

        1. The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and every town or city.

        2. If more than fifty years have passed since its foundation, it is affectionately styled by the inhabitants the “good old town of”—-(whatever its name may happen to be.)

        3. Every collection of its inhabitants that comes together to listen to a stranger is invariably declared to be a “remarkably intelligent audience.”

        As for Miss McCoy and Mrs Casey, perhaps they can be forgiven for not having access to the internet.

        • Oh Matt,
          Thanks for that.
          More than anything, I want to hold onto the desire to learn and study and persevere.
          Sure, we can lose touch.
          Sure.
          But maybe, just maybe, we’re at work on something which requires a certain concentration.
          You know, that certain concentration that puts you out of touch.
          I always thought there was room in Boston to be out of touch.
          N’est-ce pas?

            • Firefly:

              Thanks for the information. I was glad to see that blog site spelling out that information. Reading some of the posts gave me a different insight into some of the matters that were going on. I found the article about tying the Joker into the Waltham homicides fascinating although it is written by the ever unreliable Michelle McPhee.

              She notes in her May 13, 2013 article: “Massachusetts investigators have developed what they call “mounting evidence,” bolstered by “forensic hits,” that points to the possible involvement of both Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar in a gruesome, unsolved triple homicide in 2011, law enforcement officials told ABC News.” http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mounting-evidence-boston-bombers-involved-2011-triple-murder/story?id=19151271&singlePage=true#.UY00kSviojc

              Note the date of the report. Todashev was killed by the FBI 9 days later and it was alleged he was involved in the triple homicide. It’s beginning to look like Todashev met his demise because he knew too much about something. Could it have been that Tamerlan was an FBI informant?

          • Firefly:

            GOK suggested we do more than just involve ourselves with the blog to express our displeasure with some things. He wondered what we could do. I suggested that perhaps if we could get ten people to join a letter club whereby each member of the club would write a letter to one specific person say politician X each week on a subject of interest.
            We would set out the subject matter and information about which we were interested. Then each person would in her own words write a letter to X. X would have received 10 letters and we’ll wait for a response. We’ll have posted the letters and we’ll post the response to them. It may be a good exercise for us to see what effect a letter can have.

          • Hi Matt et al.,

            Here’s another one:

            The Other Things the Government Is Hiding from Dzhokhar’s Lawyers
            Posted on October 7, 2013 by emptywheel
            – See more at: http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/10/07/the-other-things-the-government-is-hiding-from-dzhokhars-lawyers/#sthash.l7DEpHMB.dpuf

            ———————

            I’m so uncomfortable with the killing of Todashev, the imprisonment of his 19 year old girlfriend, the arrest of his friend and the lack of accountability of anyone in law enforcement. The FBI guy retired forthwith. Ed Davis, likewise. The Boston FBI and MA State Police who were in Florida, in Todashev’s apartment, feel no compunction to tell us what is going on.

            My friends in Newton and Watertown still have trouble accepting that the boat was not within the search area. One couple lives one house away.

            And we have all learned that one cannot speak up to police. “Don’t tase me, Bro” happened in front of John Kerry, after all, and all the kid did was ask questions. Tasered and arrested. He’s in law school, now.

            My sister teaches a family whose son was killed by an officer who jumped on the hood of his car after he was asked to move out of a fire lane. Their son was murdered, shot through the windshield, and the officer who killed him was given the Officer of the Year award. The kid’s friends, the college football team, screamed to police to help their dying friend, on the ground, out of the car that was only pulling away from the fire lane as he was ordered to do……

            This kid did nothing more than play in an away game in front of his family who travelled to watch him and his friends. They had dinner and some of the kids went out. A couple of kids called their friend, who was later murdered, to come pick them up. He was stopped in the fire lane outside the sports bar when police arrived because of a call about something going on inside the bar. One cop told the kid to move. As he was pulling away, another cop – who said he was hit by the car doing under 5 mph – jumped on his hood and fired through the windshield killing this beautiful kid, wounding his friend with a shot through his arm, and missing the kid in the back seat.

            This family is brave. And they have not gotten very far in their call for police accountability.
            They have brought a lawsuit.
            They have done so much of which you speak.
            Matt et al.,
            My sister has taught not only him but his younger siblings. When we see our neighbors’ child murdered, and the cop is awarded Officer of the Year, we will ALWAYS think of our children first.

            • Firefly:

              Thanks for the additional information on the Joker. My sense in reading through it is the FBI/DOJ are in a bind. More and more it looks like there was some sort of deal between the FBI and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. If there was, the federals will have to do everything in their power to cover it up. This may include giving the Joker some sort of deal where they drop the death penalty case and work it so that he can get out in a dozen years. I don’t know if he will go for it but as we’ve seen the DOJ and the FBI will do anything to avoid being embarrassed and it’d be a great embarrassment if Tamerlan was an active informant, one the FBI would never want to come out.

              The killing of that young man that you talk about did receive substantial new coverage. Clearly the shot never should have been fired. Of course it was an in-your-face retorty by the police giving the officer the cop of the year award. Those are the things we are up to and that is what we have to work against to try to take back from the police the right to kill irresponsibly. I see another person was killed in Maine by the police yesterday under questionable circumstances. It’s a strange country where a person can be convicted after a thorough trial of murdering another and we institute thousands of safe guards prior to that person being executed while at the same time the cops can save us all that trouble at a whim.

              It does seem we have too many cops who shouldn’t be handling guns and too many guns. During my days the cops I worked with over twenty years in some highly difficult situations never fired at anyone and they were in risky situations since we were continually conducting raids and arrests. They were well trained and respectful of other people. Now it seems there are too many cowboys. There’s been a change for the worse and we must work to right the boat.

  7. Welcome back Matt and Congratulations!

  8. Whitey ain’t going easy. You may be blogging for years to come.

    Whitey Bulger denies murdering Debbie Davis in new prison letter

    http://dailym.ai/1dS4Ghi

    • Henry:

      Whitey will be gone by Christmas and to many that will be a wonderful gift. You have to admit he is going out like a some whiney child. Where has the man gone? You’d think he was wrongly incarcerated. Is he so far removed from reality that he thinks there is a soul out there who isn’t pleased he is where he is. Well, there may be some, but they’re not pleased because they want him sent to a federal max prison so that his inane letters cease.

  9. You are right in the thought process that Whitey the man is overated. However that is easy to say now 3 months from 2014. Growing up in new england in the 1970s i remember reading about state street and billy bulger in 1978. I remember sports illustrated reporting about horserace fixing in a 1979 trial. I remember reading about the vahala gunrunning boat for the ira to ireland in 1984.All of these events had a tie to Whitey Bulger. My aunt who was a nun lived in the d street projects and worked at the adult center on west broadway , and she ran into whitey twice at the d street deli, he always said hello sister. Whitey was a man of myth and legend and before the days of the internet and 24 hour news coverage someone who was talked about more than seen. Men like you knew his day to day life your average joe not at all. People became very interested in knowing more. Glad to hear things going well for you. regards,

    • Norwood:

      Bllly Bulger and State Street was in 1988 and it was a story full of mendacity; the race fixing was in 1979 and Whitey was just mentioned as one of many from Winter Hill. He was just a hanger around who was going to knuckle some of the bookies while Howie Winter and his buddies did the important stuff. Whitey was a small player in Valhalla according to Pat Nee who said Whitey cared little for the Irish cause.

      Whitey was myth and legend as you said – known as a strong arm guy who everyone was afraid of especially when he hooked up with Benji Flemmi in 1975. He was a guy best to stay away from if you could or to bribe if you couldn’t. His reach was not far.

  10. Another Matthew in Texas

    Nothing significant to add to the conversation other than thanking you for writing a thoughtful piece.

  11. Couldn’t agree more about the banality of Whitey (and Stevey).

    But the interesting thing is the sociology of the TE program. How many more like situations have there been? We know of at least one thanks to Peter Lance’s book “Deal With the Devil” about Gregory Scarpo, the New York City murderer.

    I suggest that what the Bureau would like to do is ride off into the sunset with its new bureaucratic anti-terrorism role and let the TE program fade. How many more were and are there? Are FBI mid-level types quietly sanitizing files? How do victims families get to know about it? If it wasn’t for one file connecting FBIHQ with knowledge or reason to know of the murders, which became the centerpieceof both the trial and appeals court decisions, and which was quietly secreted inan innocuous personnel file, it is possible that the outcome of the victim lawsuits would have been different (although the hard-working lawyers who had to fight for every rock and bush did have other stuff, the outcome could have been different in the civil cases.

    Would be interesting in your thoughts on the subject.

    • Doug:

      I have plenty of thoughts on the subject you raise that I am trying to put into a historic perspective. You make some excellent points. You may have picked up from my post that I intend to get into the area of the FBI and the top echelon area and how it was responsible in part for making Whitey into more than he is.

      Good questions, that I have asked in different form before, about sanitizing the files and the secrecy in the files. We see how many victims’ families have been able to sue and recover because of the FBI/Whitey relationship; how many other families have lost love ones because of the FBI/other top echelon gangster involvements.

      We have to keep in mind that only one or two FBI informant files (Whitey and Stevie) have been open for inspection in all of the United States. How many of hundreds of others are there that show illicit relationships between FBI agents and murderers? I hope to try to explore this. I do not want it left that it was just Boston where the evil existed (and you note it also was in New York City) but that we have a noxious system that has been established by the FBI that has been out of control for years and people are dying because of it.

      I’m glad you see that there is so much more that must be discovered and talked about.

  12. You da man Matt.
    Your last post nailed it, as does this.
    Congrats on the nee addition.

    I’m gearing up to write bios on the victims to counter the bullshit we will hear from ausa and family members during sentencing.
    Of course u know much more than me.
    It would be great if during the weeks before sentencing you remind us of who the victims were, why they were killed, and whitrys role.

    In other words this will be old news by thanksgiving but I hope you can remind people of facts during the upcoming round of garbage

    • Ernie:

      Good suggestion about the victims. I’ll definitely get into it. I’ve been thinking how strange this all is from the idea of the victim’s parade. Did they get a chance to parade in front of Martorano, or Flemmi, or Weeks? Where was the US Attorney’s office in those cases. What about Flemmi with all his property and Martorano with his picture and book deals. Is the US Attorney interested in getting the victims any of their money? That’s why I suggest if we concentrate on Whitey we miss what really is happening in this matter.

      I’m glad you too will be doing the same thing.

      • Insist that all of Martorano’s and Howie Carr’s money be confiscated to compensate the five victims from Savin Hill killed by Martorano and his associates. Howie Carr profited from these killings by befriending Martorano and co-writing Hitman. Remember Tony Veranis, Eddie Connors, Red O’Toole, Billy Sullivan and Bucky Barrett. Who speaks for these victims and their families? Even if some were involved in organized crime, they deserved to be arrested, tried and sentenced, not executed by Martorano and his associates. As for Howie Carr, I’ve always asked who’s worse? The Murderer? or the man, Howie Carr, who mocks the murder victims and profits from their killings?

        • William:

          Martorano and Howie Carr will keep their money. We must always keep in mind that you are judged by your friends. There is an old doctrine called assumption of the risk: you hang with gangsters you take the risk of doing it. That’s not to mean anyone has the right to murder another person, but considering the clean hands doctrine which seems to have been overlooked when Mafia guys and other gangsters get compensated by the taxpayer there should be little compensation afforded to gangsters who get caught up in their gangsterism.

          Howie Carr is what he is, a showman opportunist who many pay good money to read his offerings. His fiction is a far cry from Stephen King but as a Maniac he does his best.

          • Matt: 1. guys like Tony Veranis had done some time and were moving away from the criminal world. See Character Assassins for his brief bio. My point, if compensation goes to any, it should go to all. 2. The FEDs arbitrarily excused Martorano. Their “immunity deal” with Martorano was a sham to begin with, void ab initio: he and his lawyer and I believe perhaps Wyshak and Major Foley pulled a fraud on the Court when they presented to a judge a list of 24 persons whom Martorano said he would testify against. After the immunity deal “the contract”, which was entered into in bad faith, (perhaps by all sides) is sealed, struck and approved by the court, and then Martorano laughs and mocks Wyshak and says he knows nothing about any of the 24. He’s pulled the wool over wyshak’s witless or willing eyes and he’s perpetrated a fraud on the court. My questions are when did Wyshak et al learn of this fraud, how long before they reported it to Court and what did the Court do about it. As you point to elemental principles of tort law, here we have elemental principles of contract law nullifying Martorano’s immunity deal. Arrest him, imprison him and seize all his assets. (3) I’d add Howie Carr’s name to the list of the VILE.

            • William:

              1. Guys are always turning their lives around but Tony was still hanging with the same guys at the same after hour joints. I knew a French guy, Henri Boutain, who turned his live around each time he got out of Walpole.

              2. Actually the federals knew Martorano didn’t know the people he said he would testify against, it was more like two or three extra names than 20. No one who was party to the contract was fooled. The people were added to fool the public to make the deal look a little better.