Years later before a Congressional committee for some reason O’Sullivan did not want to admit that he gave them a pass at the request of the FBI. He had suffered several strokes and a heart attack prior to the hearing and was still not in the best of health. By that time it was well know they had engaged in many murders but back at the time Morris made that request it was not clear Whitey or Stevie were murderers. O’Sullivan passed off as his reason for not indicting them that he did not have corroborating evidence of their involvement in the race fixing. But it was shown by the Committee that he indicted another, Jimmy Sims another big shot in the gang, without that information. It was also shown that he did have corroboration.
I had to write about O’Sullivan to let you have an insight into Carney’s comments. Carney presses the case that because O’Sullivan took Whitey out of the indictment that proves the agreement between them. Carney wants to move from that to suggesting O’Sullivan must have told other attorneys in Boston DOJ office about that agreement and they have corruptly agreed not to ever reveal it. As a former prosecutor I suggest it is all nonsense.
To accept Carney’s position you have to believe O’Sullivan went to Bill Weld who was the U.S. attorney and told him, “Bill, I made a deal with Whitey. He’d protect me if I’d agree not to prosecute him for any crimes he was involved in.” Weld replied: “OK Jerry, I’ll tell all the lawyers on my staff to lay off Whitey.” O’Sullivan then thanked him. As O’Sullivan was leaving Weld said: “Say, Jerry, does that include all his murders in the past and the future?” O’Sullivan said it did. Weld said, “OK, I just want to be clear on it.” If it all sounds a little preposterous then you’re right on the ball.
The panel started off with Joe Berlinger saying he didn’t know whether Whitey was an informant or not. He told us he wanted to make the film to tell the story of the suffering of the victims. He said he was bothered by the government being in the business of who lives or who dies. That’s the closest anyone came to discussing the TEI program.
In response to Berlinger, Kelly said several things of note. First, the issue of whether Whitey was an informant had no relation to his guilt or innocence, no quarrel with that. Next, that the defense brought up the issue during trial. I had to suppress a smile knowing how much time the prosecution spent trying to prove he was an informant having a witness James Marra on the stand for almost a week in that regard. While suppressing the smile I almost fell out of my chair when he said that “anyone who talks to an FBI agent is an informant.” That’s certainly a new leap across the Charles River.
But worse of all was Kelly’s statement that Whitey had corrupted numerous agents over the years by paying them off. There is a great problem with making such a loose statement. What exactly does it mean? What did Whitey do and what did the FBI agent do in return. To hear the government attorney suggesting such a thing gives it great credence. But if you understand the FBI agents were supposed to protect TEIs like Whitey you wonder where was the corruption? Kelly was behind the prosecution of Connolly and to justify that he had to believe such a thing and not that the agents were doing their jobs.
The claim that many agents were paid off is totally bogus. It is the nonsense the media was trafficking in for years ” widespread corruption in the Boston FBI ” Where are the indictments? Where are the charges? Where is the proof? Does Kelly buy Whitey’s claims? Is he that naïve? It is comparable to the specious claim the media hyped that four innocents were framed for the Deegan killing. Limone and Tamellio were never innocents. No wonder the public has so little confidence in federal employees.
NC:
That’s the meme that has taken hold in the case. Your buddy Bob Bloom talks about all the corruption that was in the FBI office; Carney has 30 to 35 FBI agents on Whitey’s payroll; Kelly tells of the corruption among Boston agents, Boeri adds his two cents worth. Forget the indictments because there aren’t any. Where’s Durham’s report that was supposed to set it out? It never came. Where’s the disciplinary action from FBI headquarters? Nothing is there except bald accusations repeated over and over until accepted as truth. It is all nonsense if you know anything about the FBI. What happened in Boston happened in every other FBI office in the nation. There were no offices that went off the reservations. They had a constant inflow and outflow of agents and ASACs and SACs and yearly inspections. The FBI was as homogenized as the milk you put in your cereal.
Kelly buys into all this stuff which cast a great pall on his persona and reflects a strange mindset which sort of justifies what some agents have said that he perceived the FBI as some monster wind mill that had to be destroyed and himself as Pancho to Don Quixote Wyshak.
True, Limone and Tamelio were not framed, in fact the evidence buttresses Joe Barboza’s testimony since he had to get clearance from the Mafia big wigs before killing Deegan. You’re wrong about the public, they buy into all of the lies and half-truths that are put out in the media and the courts. If most paid half as much attention to what affects their daily lives as they do to the Rouge Sox and Brady Bunch perhaps the country would not be doing down the chute as fast as it is as witnessed by the trillion dollar budget.