There is an abundant number of tall tales told by Gangsters that upon cursory analysis are beyond belief but are accepted as gospel by prosecutors and writers. What is tragic is that they act upon these falsehoods or repeat them giving them a veneer of credence. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the Boston media and federal prosecutors office.
One that immediately comes to mind was the one prosecutor John Durham (familiar name lately) put forth. He had John Martorano testify that Whitey told him and others that FBI agent John Connolly said that he would pass on information to Whitey because he owed his brother Bill a favor.
If there is one thing we know for sure it is Whitey never brought his brother’s name up at anytime. How do we know? Other gangsters closer to Whitey would certainly have testified to it. We also know because Martorano said Whitey knew he better not be giving information because they’d know about it – but they didn’t know their partner Flemmi had been giving info to FBI for ten years.
Martorano lived a life of lies which he admitted. He tells a totally uncorroborated and easily proven false story, Yet after doing so the headlines in all Boston newspapers wrote about it as impugning Bill Bulger. Aside from coming from a liar it was blatant hearsay – Whitey said that Connolly said,
That in court whopper pales in comparison to the outside ones.
The biggest I believe are the ones involving FBI agent Paul Rico. He allegedly had Buddy McLean as an informant. The McLaughlin Charleston and McLean Somerville gangs were having a beef. The McLaughlins had arranged for a guy named Ronald Dermody to hit McLean. He went to Somerville, probably stoned, and shot the wrong guy.
He then panicked. The next day he made a call trying to straighten it out. The gangster story is he called Agent Rico. They made arrangements to meet. Rico then called McLean and told him where he’d be. McLean went and murdered him. McLean then hid in Rico’s house for a week until the heat died down.
The big fault with the story is there was no heat. No one was looking for McLean. Why would he hide? Why would Rico who had five kids bring him into his house? The second is that the person who Dermody would have reached out when he sobered up is someone with McLean to try to make peace. There is no way Rico could help him.
Then there’s the story that Rico wanted to murder George McLaughlin because he had a gypsy wire on his telephone and he heard that George called J. Edgar Hoover the FBI director a homosexual and he got four other FBI agents to go along with him. They didn’t do it because one wouldn’t go along.
If Rico actually planned to do that would he be telling gangsters that was his plan? Was Rico so loyal to the director of the FBI that he would kill anyone who said something he did not like about him? Do you think others in the FBI would go along with such a scheme? These are the stories the gangsters spread that make no sense.
Then add in this. Rico was behind the prosecution of Mafia boss Patriarca and his top lieutenants Gerry Angiulo. Henry Tameleo, and others. The guys Rico was dealing with, especially Salemme, were buddies with Patriarca and the others. Do you for one minute think they would not have given information about Rico being a corrupt cop to the Mafia leaders so that they could jam him in. They’d have become heroes. Would Rico be so stupid as to put himself in a position with gangsters that would compromise him while going after their buddies?
I’ll never understand how the word of life long criminals is believed over the words of people who are motivated to serve the people.
You are right. The gangsters lied. The Feds knew it yet they still dealt with them because their agenda was to get Sen. Bulger who was universally despised by the media. His crime was not treating those self important clowns with respect and having the temerity to hold high office which no one from Southie should ever do. Those from SoBo are children of a lesser god. Just ask the Globe. 2. The local press has the same high moral standards as the tv networks. NBC and the NY Times covered up Weinstein’s crimes for years. ABC covered up Epstein’s crimes for years. What Reagan said about the Soviet Union ” They lie they cheat they’ll commit any crime to advance their interests” applies to the American media. They are the focus of evil in the modern world. 3. Comey and Mueller who ran the DOJ nationally in 2003 adopted, ratified and advanced the Rogue Agent theory by allowing Connolly to be charged with murder in Florida and Rico to be charged with the Wheeler murder in Oklahoma. No FBI agents could ever be charged by a local prosecutor without the FBI’s O K. The most pernicious aspect of the Rogue Agent theory was the murder charges. Mueller who was #2 in the Boston DOJ during the 80s had an incentive to hold him, the U S Attorney’s office and the FBI as an institution blameless. He wanted to deflect attention from his and his offices conduct. Not a profile in courage. Delahunt was right about it being an institutional problem. not one agent. 4. Comey left the government in 2005. He worked for Lockheed Martin the defense contractor where he was paid $6 million. The FBI Director, Mueller awarded a $90 million contract to Lockheed. Just a coincidence. In 2013 Mueller passed the FBI Director’s baton to his pal Comey. There was a photo of Obama, Mueller and Comey in the Oval Office concocting the Boston Marathon lie re. Tsarnaev being unknown to the Feds. Some on this blog thought Tsarnaev was an FBI informant. 5. Comey and Mueller did advance the Rogue Agent theory, the Russia Collusion Hoax and the Boston Marathon Lie. A Deep State Cabal. Some in the Deep State admit it exists but says it is good for you. Hillary calls any political opposition Russian Assets ( Trump, Stein and Tulsi) Heavy doses of alcohol can kill brain cells. She is living proof.
Yes, and overly zealous prosecutors offer obscenely lenient deals to serial killers, gangsters like Martorano, Flemmi and Salemme, and to Morris, a corrupt agent and admitted attempted murderer, to spin tales the prosecutors wanted to hear. Yes gangsters lie and they’ll especially lie to get lenient deals. Flemmi lied to avoid execution; Martorano and Salemme lied to get of jail early; Morris lied to get in the witness protection program.
Remember, Flemmi changed eight years of testimony under Wyshak’s tutelage; Remember, Salemme was convicted of perjury at Connolly’s trial in Boston; Remember the Boston jury did not believe one word of Martorano’s testimony, and almost nothing of what Morris testified to (except one time Morris said Connolly gave him a case of wine with an envelope with a grand in it; at trial, under cross-examination, Morris couldn’t remember where the envelope was (at bottom of case, on top, or between the botttles) and Morris testified Connolly never mentioned the envelope until two weeks later when Morris said Connolly said cryptically “How did you like what was in the case?” an ambiguous question.)
Remember, too, Martorano’s obscene deal: For admitting to 20 murders, he got 12 years in prison (with time already served he was out in a few years); the FEDs also gave him $20,000 in cash; the FEDs also told him he did not have to say anything about the murders or other crimes committed by his brother of his other murderous associates. If Wyshak had waited one year, Kevin Weeks would have implicated Martorano in murders. In other words, the deals were unnecessary.
Remember, too, it seems very likely that Martorano fabricated his murder of Tony Veranis. Howie Carr told two different versions of Martorano’s supposed encounter with Tony: first Martorano said he out-muscled, out-wrestled Tony; then he said he beat Tony on the draw and shot him.
The problems with this testimony. Tony was a professional boxer with a 26-2-2 record, stronger and faster than Martorano. Secondly, sportswriter Bob Coyne and priest Father Hart (and another priest from Walpole, where Tony had done a brief stint) all attested at the time Tony’s body was discovered, that Tony was on the straight-and-narrow, had turned his life around, was working construction, helping his parents, was sober, and no way would he be carrying a gun. Thirdly, the autopsy showed Tony was shot in the back of the head like Martorano shot all his victims; the autopsy belied Martorano’s various accounts of a struggle or a fast draw. Fourthly, Martorano said Billy Sullivan was a witness, but Tony and Billy Sullivan were from Savin Hill; Billy was living there, raising his family and obviously knew Tony, his reputation in the community and his professional boxing accomplishments (Tony was local hero) and if Billy saw Martorano pull a gun on Tony, Billy would have shot Martorano. Of course, Billy was dead at the time Martorano told his story to the FEDs.
No one corroborated Martorano’s story. Two priests and the best sports writer in town contradicted it.
But who did the FEDs believe? Father Hart and the other priest and the esteemed sportswriter Bob Coyne with their contemporaneous recollections, recorded by Bob Coyne? No, the FEDs and the Press believed Martorano’s obvious fabrications, among other fabrications recounted to the Boston jury which the Boston jury rejected.
The Miami jury also rejected Martorano’s and Flemmi’s testimony, because the Miami jury acquitted John Connolly of conspiracy. So, anything Martorano or Flemmi said regarding conspiring (about what Whitey said Connolly said, or what someone else said Connolly “suggested” three weeks before Callahan was murdered, were things said during the act of conspiring) the Miami jury said, Wrong, “Not guilty!” “Not guilty of conspiracy.”
The innocent are persecuted; the serial killers and attempted murderers are coddled and treated with Kidd gloves.