Next Monday there will be a hearing in federal court in Boston. I believe they will be setting a schedule for the filing of substantive motions — you know, the kind where Whitey will have to be present in the courtroom. That should bring in the crowds since the status hearings which are much ado about nothing fill the courtroom to about 75%.
When Whitey is brought in there will be the additional security that the government likes to throw at these things. They’ll be helicopters, patrol boats, armored cars, guys dressed in black with frightening looking weapons, others dressed in plain clothes with subtle ear pieces, and additional check points. I haven’t been there when Whitey is brought in. I’ll keep you posted as to what it’s like when it happens. But before then, I’ll also update you next Monday after the hearing or Tuesday morning, at the latest, on what is going on with the trial.
I don’t know how many of you view my comments section on-line. I’ve been receiving some compelling comments on various topics surrounding these issues. It’s almost like I’ve set up a guest blog, of sorts, since other people, mostly anonymous, have a chance to give their two cents worth. I answer every comment by giving back my penny’s worth. If you haven’t seen it, take a peek.
One thing nice about it is that I don’t get any trash comments. Some write asking good questions; others are trying to understand some of the things better; others challenging what I wrote. All this is good as we work to keep our nation as a place where police protect us, not rule us.
One person who comments has a lot of information on Kevin Weeks that seems quite factual. Her comments made me go back and consider the whole Southie scene. I wondered who is running the rackets in Southie and whether that person, or those persons, are being protected by the FBI. That is something of horror that I hadn’t considered.
Another couple of persons who comment are upset at the Bobby George case. Bobby George as a young lawyer worked in the DAs office in Dedham (Norfolk) when he first started out practicing. He worked pretty much exclusively for Bob Banks, who was a premier defense lawyer, prosecutor and judge. Banks was what you would call a “class act.” Banks passed away in October 2010.
Bobby George was convicted of money laundering in a very contentious trial in federal court. Unfortunately, I didn’t follow Bobby’s trial that much. I knew the defense bar did not think Bobby would be convicted. Bobby himself wrote a letter predicting he would prevail. From what I heard some strange things happened at his trial like one of Bobby’s defense lawyers handled most of the case and another came in at the end to do an argument to the jury.
It’s apparently a new thing to have more than one lawyer try a case in front of a jury. Like many new things it’s a bad idea. Without getting into it too much, when a jury is listening to a case, it is not only weighing the evidence it is affected by the trial lawyer to a certain extent. It watches him or her work. Each juror decides whether they think the lawyer is on the level and is worthy of belief. A certain vibe is created between counsel and the jury for better or worse. When the lawyer stands up for a final argument, especially in a case that has lasted for a week or more, the jury has a certain feeling for that lawyer. It has been living with him for five or more hours for days in a row.
The lawyer who tries the case also has a better idea of the evidence than a kibitzer lawyer who will come in and disappear. Believe it or not, a lot of the case happens during the hours of midnight to five when the lawyer sleeps and the happenings are sorted out in his or her mind. I’ve often woken up in the middle of the night during a trial and figured something out that I had missed earlier.
If Bobby had a tag team defending him it was unwise. Another thing I know about the case is the jury was out for four hours, a very short time for such a difficult case. That seemed to indicate the jury had no trouble coming to a verdict. One juror said all they needed were the tapes. Apparently they are very damning. Bobby is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
Other people who comment bring up good points about the system of justice as reflected by the happenings in federal court and the dealings of the prosecutors. One of their main points is to ask how can a prosecutor put a known liar on the stand. I’ll write on that tomorrow.
Certain of those commenting have made me take a second look at John Connolly. I agree with them that he should not be incarcerated in Florida but not for the reasons that they put forth; but I do not agree that he wasn’t rightfully convicted in Boston as I claim in my book Don’t Embarrass The Family.
Early on I had the author of one of the books on Whitey write in alleging I knew nothing about what I was writing. He made a claim in his book that he had taken down Anguilo’s Mafia operation when he was in Boston. I wrote back to him telling him that he had nothing to do with it, but if he did, please explain. He stopped writing.
I know you are all busy and there are zillions of things to read, to watch, and to do. But if you want to delve more into some of these matters then go to the comment section on the blog. You’ll find it interesting.
interesting as always , the people who comment here have a lot of knowledge about what happened in massachusetts over the years. i thank the man who put this together. i think so many of the comments present a point of view i have never thought of . i have read so much of whitey killing steve flemis two former girlfriends i never gave it serios consideration it did not happen that way. any chance liz warren and scott brown might get a question about what is happening in boston in 2012 with regards to pat nee being quote unquote in charge and perhaps being an fbi informant?
You see from the comments that Nee is apparently being protected. It appears he may have been involved in killing two people with Whitey and he puts himself at the scene of McIntyre’s murder. What is happening is strange; he is not being protected because he is cooperating and testifying, as far as I know, but because other people are cooperating. In other words, three guys, A,B,C go off an commit a murder and one ‘A’ turns state evidence and he says I will only tell you the name of ‘B’ but I will not identify C. The feds say OK, so they let two murderers A and C get away to get B. Then to make it even stranger, they get evidence from other people about C being involved but still won’t prosecute C. No chance the politicians will be asked about it. Thanks for commenting.
I have serious doubts that Bulger killed Steve Flemmi’s two girlfriends.
First, history shows Whitey had enough decency to remain active and well liked in his old neighborhood. Southie would never suffer fools and maggots for very long. Well, at least the latter would be ostracized, if not something more final. If one of Whitey’s own girlfriends had disappeared, it would have been the end of him in the neighborhood, among other bad things.
Next, his actual relationship history with women also suggests he treated the many women he was involved with over his life very decently. The mother of his son describes him as a gentle, supportive and caring father who was distraught by his son’s untimely death. Other women with whom he was involved also have spoken of him fondly and rejected the Fed’s negative publicity campaign. There is no evidence that Bulger treated women as chattle or objects of violence or ever involved them in the “life”.
Even Pat Nee writes that Whitey had better scruples. Bulger risked his own life to shield a young child from witnessing violence. Whitey was allegedly pointing a .45 semi-automatic at Nee (then his mortal enemy) while Nee sat vulnerable on a couch. When a young child of Nee’s girlfriend walked into the room, Whitey opted not to expose the child to a murder, even a defensive murder of a sworn blood enemy. Bulger’s reason and judgment with respect to that child’s future overcame even his urge of self-preservation that was a mere 6 pounds of trigger-pull away. Bulger turned and left Nee and the child unharmed. Nee it turns out was not so burdened. He says he grabbed a nearby rifle and ran past the child with it to shoot Whitey. Nee regrets he didn’t have a clear shot.
Bulger’s sense of scruples also contrasts sharply with Murder Man Martorano who admitted murdering a 15 year old African American girl and her 17 year old friend simply because they were in a car with a man Martorano was being paid to kill. That’s how Martorano got the street name “Sickle Cell.” When Sickle Cell Martorano hopped in bed with the feds they quickly sanitized that street name. They were especially concerned about hiding that fact from then DA Ralph Martin so he would sign Sickle Cell’s immunity agreement.
The large picture of the USA’s prosecution and ‘re-history’ campaign can be summarized as “Whitey is solely responsible all street crime for fifty years” and “John Connolly is solely responsible for all federal law enforcement misconduct, ever”.
Some part of this campaign evolved naturally from the historical circumstances. For example, after Whitey was indicted and disappeared it became apparent that he was way ahead of his federal law enforcement pursuers. The continuing failure to apprehend Bulger raised old rifts between agencies and pressure mounted to get results. The public started to see the seemy side of the FBI’s use of informants. The Fed family became embarrassed. When the family gets embarrassed, someone will pay dearly. Its as if the harsher the punishment, the cleaner the family feels afterwards and can recover its false pride. They ultimately bought evidence from Weeks that Bulger escaped and stayed gone because of John Connolly. And how they have made John pay!
The USA buckled under the pressure to act so they turned to their extensive contacts in the media and leaked myriad documents to the likes of Howie Carr. Their campaign to malign Whitey was intended to vilify him so much that nobody would aid him as a fugitive….and somebody MUST be aiding him if the McGruffs on Northern Ave couldn’t catch him!! The USA even staged a phony press conference stating Whitey was a child molester…add to this a nudist, gay, womanizer, woman killer, rapist, swinger, bad breath?, etc. etc. etc. The USA also smeared Bulger’s brother Bill, trying desperately to drag him into their own quagmire. Their desire to smear him was never more evident than when they “leaked” his secret grand jury testimony just days before he was to testify before Congress. That leak was a crime that was apparently never even investigated. Over the fugitive years, the USA purchased loads of “vending machine evidence”. Literally pressing the button to dispense the evidence they wanted made. Out came the evidence exactly as requested.
To support their campaign that Whitey committed all crimes, the USA has now purchased evidence from hundreds of maggots by doling out deals of complete immunity, and often cold hard cash, to blame every crime they know of on Bulger. Crimes that said maggots committed themselves are especially valuable because the maggot knows the details and just has to paint Whitey into the scene (see Martorano and Flemmi and Weeks). Blaming the womens’ deaths on Bulger works very well with the Fed’s theory.
Week’s story about how the women died doesn’t fit with common sense. Did it really take three muscular, experienced gangsters to kill the young women, one of whom was a heroin addict? At that rate it would take twenty of them to kill a commercial fisherman like John McIntyre. Bulger had nothing to gain from the womens’ deaths. In fact, he had much to lose. He had absolutely no interest in being anywhere near such nastiness. That’s why I doubt he was even there. These were both Stevie’s girlfriends, his problems, his sick solutions.
The “vending machine evidence” that charges Bulger killed the girls comes only from Weeks and Flemmi. Flemmi has already admitted to others that he killed his girlfriends himself, not Bulger. On the other hand, he was happy to blame it on the fugitive ghost Bulger because he was given something of great value for his “vending machine evidence”, he and his brother Mike got to be housed at upgraded prisons! NOW THAT FLEMMI HAS BEEN PAID IN FULL TO BLAME BULGER FOR THESE DISGUSTING CRIMES AND IS STARING AT THE END GAME OF LIFE, I BOLDLY PREDICT HERE THAT FLEMMI WILL CHANGE HIS TESTIMONY AT BULGER’S TRIAL AND STATE TRUTHFULLY THAT FLEMMI ALONE KILLED HIS GIRLFRIENDS.
Weeks also had perfect motive to blame the womens’ murders on Whitey: 1. the USA pushed the button requesting that testimony, 2. the worse Weeks made Whitey look, the better Weeks would look for ratting out his friend, 3. Bulger told Weeks at their last meeting “Kevin, if anything comes down on you, put it all right on me.”, 4. Weeks thought Bulger was “trapped in Europe after 9/11” and would never be able to “visit” Kevin.
As easy as it has been for Weeks to exclude Nee and others from his description of homicide scenes like the one on the waterfront, so Weeks easily painted Whitey and John Connolly into scenes. Weeks even painted himself and Whitey into the scenes where Stevie killed his girlfriends.
Week’s masterpiece, however, was the scene where he painted John Connolly into a walk in refrigerator where Connolly allegedly tipped him off to the original indictments. That just never happened. It is classic “vending machine evidence”. That whopper carries the distinct stench of Wyshak.
Pardon the element of speculation in this comment, Matt. The stench of the entire campaign against Whitey and Connolly makes me question all the so-called evidence. Purchased evidence just should not be admissible. Furthermore, when it is proven to be as unreliable as it has been coming from Weeks, Flemmi and Martorano, it should be unethical for a prosecutor to present to a jury.
The USA really has no choice now but to present all their shaky and perjurious evidence to a jury in Whitey’s trial. They want the trial to be the final chapter in the book they wrote in which Whitey and John Connolly are solely responsible for all the crimes and law enforcement misdeeds over decades.
The bigger question for this trial will be if the trial judge will allow Carney to present the substantial evidence that the FBI’s TE program worked just as it was designed in this case. That it worked just as it did in many similar cases across the country at that time. Based on the judges’ rulings so far, it seems he has already bought into the “one gangster/one rogue agent” theory and he will suppress the defense evidence to the contrary at every turn.
The judge will have made an enormous error. The Whitey trial is about far more than one gangster and one rogue agent. The federal law enforcement system itself will be on trial. Unfortunately, this case is like no other. The adversarial system assumes the government will act honorably and from that tension on the facts the truth will arise. With Judge Stearns as trial judge, the trial will be a sham. The federal government cannot allow Carney to present a defense in which the government is really the accused. It is that age old problem of “who will police the police?” The responsibility of the USA to put some safeguards on its purchased evidence is also a key issue. Unless a real judge is flown in from another part of the country, it will take many years of review before this trial is seen as the charade it promises to be.
Patty
Patty:
I wrote in my book that I always believed Weeks lied about his meeting with Connolly in the liquor store. It was just so convenient that he came up with that so that the Wyshak and company could bring the RICO charges against Connolly. Without Weeks’s evidence the statute of limitations would have expired. Connolly, who never had anything to do with Weeks, and being in no rush to get the news to Whitey (nothing was going to happen until after the holidays) and who had his own way of contacting Whitey (he never went through Weeks) is supposed to have gone into the liquor store three days before Christmas and in front of all the cops and customers, some of who would have known him, and ask for Whitey. When he didn’t see him he walked back into the cooler with Weeks to give him the news. Rather than saying tell “Whitey the indictments are coming down after the holiday.” he goes on to say totally unnecessary things like, “there’s only four people in the FBI who know about it and I got the information from O’Callaghan.” The scenario has always been ridiculous. Durham in his final argument said how could he know that if Connolly didn’t tell him. That was simple to answer, even assuming the feds didn’t tell him, Connolly told him during the period when he was working with him to help Flemmi, or Whitey was pissed at Connolly when he almost drove back into a trap on January 5, 1995, and Connolly explained to him that he had no idea of the indictments because only four FBI agents knew. Whitey then told Weeks. There are other ways also. The bottom line is Connolly is a skilled agent, he knows not to trust someone like Weeks, and he had no reason to confide in him.
I’ve doubted Whitey was involved in killing the young women. He had no motive to do it. I understand the women he was involved with said he respected them but you can respect some women and not others. I don’t give him a pass because of that I just don’t see the motive. He was too disciplined to get involved in something like that. Weeks wasn’t even around for the Debbie Davis murder. That was a Flemmi solo. Flemmi by the way seemed to really enjoy the mutilation of the body after it was dead. Guys like that would kill anything.
You’re right about Whitey not shooting in front of kids; Nee said that was a Southie code. There’s a story that one of the Kileens whenever he left his house he’d have one of his kids with him knowing that gave him protection.
I don’t think Flemmi will testify like you suggest. He likes the easy time he is now serving, that is if he is serving at all. The bureau of prisons says he’s not in their custody. He might be out like Sperrazza is now out even though he got a first degree life sentence without parole in Norfolk for killing two young girls but he flipped for the feds and he’s now on the street. Flemmi is interested in Flemmi so he’ll want the secret deal he made with the feds not to be infringed upon. He’ll come through for the feds. Whitey never thought he could do time.
Weeks is a legitimate tough guy but he couldn’t abide the idea he’d spend the rest of his life in prison. He was very willing to tell everything he could to implicate Whitey because the more he did the better his deal. I watched him testify. He’s a tough witness and will be hard to crack. As you know, if you’re at the scene of a murder it’s very easy to add someone else into it. Joe “The Animmal” Barboza added four other people to a murder who weren’t there. Weeks was there when they were murdered or at least he buried them. Notice how he has Whitey leaving the scene right after the murder and he and Flemmi have to do the burial. Sort of strange.
I don’t agree Whitey was well liked in Southie; I’d say he was respected and avoided. If he got his kicks out of killing young women, as Weeks alleges, he had plenty of young women he could have murdered yet no one has alleged that he had done it.
I know about Murderman Martorano killing the young African American girl and the young kid with her. He pretends he didn’t know it was a girl as if they are seated in a heated car with their hoods up and he doesn’t know who was there. He knew as soon as he saw the car and he climbed into the back seat and the girl turned around to look at him. He said the first shot blinded him. It’s more of the Murderman’s nonsense. He also shot at a woman who was sitting next to the bartender in the car when he fired at the car with a grease gun. She was just fortunate she was not killed but it was no thanks to Murderman. We know his brother had some involvement with another young womaan who was killed and that’s why Murderman says he was killing all the other people.
Never heard of Murderman’s street name.
I agree with your summary — we’re supposed to believe everyone would be fine and dandy if Whitey were not around and no one in the FBI knew anything about Connolly and his informants.
The feds never went after Whitey when he first took off. It was not until long into his flight, when all the FBI agents he could bring down had retired that the FBI made an effort. When the feds were embarrassed with the disclosure of its relationship with Whitey and Stevie the old rogue agent theory was dusted off and Connolly took the hit. Connolly’s problem is he didn’t realize how much they had turned on him. I told him at his trial that the feds wanted one thing from him and that was for him to implicate Billy Bulger. He said he had nothing to give them, I remember his exact words, “he’s a man of integrity.” They couldn’t get Billy through Connolly so they used a Congressional hit squad, and as you mentioned, a leak from the DOJ to the Globe. The most shocking leaks was Morris working with the Globe to undermine both Whitey and Billy. He leaked Whitey was an informant and Billy was being interviewed about 75 State Street as well as feeding the Globe stuff on McCormick.
I don’t believe Whitey ever told Kevin he could put it all on him. That to me is something Weeks spread about to pretend he wasn’t really being a rat. Why would Whitey say that? Whitey would expect Weeks to stand tall and be the tough guy he portrayed himself as being. The last thing Whitey would have wanted was Weeks delivering up the bodies. I agree with you that Weeks never thought Whitey would come back.
I think the feds are in a bind with Weeks. It is now public knowledge he lied. Bob Hunt who wrote after you today said that Flemmi testified that Nee was one of the murderers. Why then isn’t Nee being charge? How are the feds using two witnesses one who absolutely had to be lying.
I had a much better feeling about the happenings in this case until I got involved with this blog and did some thinking about it. The feds just want Whitey go away because people are starting to see that their evidence is coming from a bunch of liars. What right do the feds have to buy testimony, know their witnesses are lying, and then put them on the stand? I don’t think they should be able to do it. You know J.Edgar Hoover never wanted the FBI to get involved with this stuff because he foresaw things like this happening where the corruption of the gangsters permeates the DOJ and the FBI.
I don’t know how Stearns will handle this. He’s already had Weeks testify in front of him. He must have been impressed by him because he gave him a marshmallow sentence. He doesn’t have to worry about being tipped because the Court of Appeals has already concluded Whitey and Connolly are involved in these murders. He served in the Boston US attorney’s office with Mueller the FBI head for many years. They must know each other. Mueller would want the FBI to come out of this clean. Last time in court the magistrate made it clear, unlike the time before, that Carney was going to be kept on a short leash. I think she caught him by surprise with her abruptness. This case is on the express track – there will be a rush to judgment unless cooler heads prevail – it seems now Whitey will get the bum’s rush, no court will take a second look at it, and it will be buried and forgotten so that what you suggest is the large picture takes firm hold on the minds of everyone: “Whitey is solely responsible [for] all street crime for fifty years” and “John Connolly is solely responsible for all federal law enforcement misconduct ever.”
Thanks for writing, enjoy your comments.