Soon after Stevie arrived they started to eliminate the Mullins who might be a threat to Whitey. Winter and Martorano would pretty much run the show up until 1979 when a federal case concerning race fixing sent them to prison or on the lam.
Flemmi was a long time FBI informant. Whitey may have been. Whether the latter was one or not, both he and Flemmi were protected by FBI agent John Connolly. They moved their operation to Lancaster Street in the North End. They were discovered there by the Massachusetts State Police. Tipped off, they moved their location ending up in a South Boston Liquor store.
English wrote about Whitey in 2005 in an interesting book Paddy Whacked, The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster. To write the story English returned to the Boston area in 2004 about ten years after Whitey took off. By that time the Whitey myth would be well into its ascendancy. English swallowed it hook, line and sinker. He depended for his sources mainly upon the notoriously biased Black Mass and a self-important Southie gangster Patrick Nee.
Nee was a member of the Mullins gang from Southie. After a meeting at Chandler’s in the South End (not to be confused with South Boston) in the fall of 1972 Nee and his partners in the Mullins, who were at war with the Killeen gang of which Whitey was a member, agreed to a peace deal whereby Whitey and the Mullins would share the profits from their illegal enterprises in South Boston.
Nee wrote how he and Whitey were partners. Whitey kept his half while Nee had to split his part of the booty with his Mullins partners, Tommy King, Paul McGonagle, and Buddy Leonard.
He seemed not to have been bothered when his partners were murdered by Whitey and his friends in 1974 and 1975. First it was Paulie McGonagle and then King and Leonard. That always struck some as odd. It was almost as if he had a hand in their murders so that he could keep their share of the loot. He was partners in 1984 when he brought John McIntyre to a house on East Broadway, South Boston where he was murdered. He would remain partners with Whitey up until 1990 when he was grabbed for an attempted armed robbery the time Whitey fled.
Nee who had been an enemy of Whitey and then his partner decided to become his enemy again after Whitey fled. Maybe that was how he was able to get out of doing his full bit in prison. By 2004 Nee decided it was best to befriend the guys who had flipped on Whitey like John Martorano and Kevin Weeks so that they would not hang him out to dry for some of his illegal activities. He was well prepared to dish on Whitey when English came to town.
Nee didn’t know much about Whitey’s background. If he did English would not have written that in 1969: “Nee knew Bulger by reputation. He was Jim Bulger back then before his hair receded and turned prematurely silver, earning him the nickname Whitey.” The truth being Whitey was called Whitey as a kid in the projects 30 years before that.
That is just one of a multitude of errors English makes in his 2005 book. He has Nee meeting with Howie Winter over at Winter Hill in 1961 where if he met with anyone it would have been Buddy McLean who was the leader; he has Frank Salemme and Joe Barboza working together as hit men which never happened. Salemme did those hits with Steve Flemmi. He suggest FBI agent Rico didn’t like the McLaughlin gang because they had information he was a closet homosexual confusing the gangster story that Rico didn’t like them because they were overheard saying J. Edgar Hoover was gay.
He has Rico saying at his arraignment on the murder charges for the Wheeler homicide “Do you want tears” when he said it at a Congressional hearing; he has Nee lurking in the shrubbery across from Whitey’s residence in Old Harbor Village with a rifle shooting at Whitey when he stepped out of his apartment; (he has no idea how impossible that would be). He portrays Whitey as some of coward writing: “Sometimes Bulger would go weeks without ever leaving his mother’s home, for fear that he would be cut down like a dog in the street.”
Wa-llahi! OUN-B. The “B” is important. The other OUN factions weren’t terrorists.
In other Ukranian news
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/sep/18/mykola-lebed-and-the-cia/
September 18, 2018
The CIA and “Uncle Louie”
How alleged Ukrainian war criminal Mykola Lebed ended up publishing Agency-funded propaganda in the US
Written by Christine Lytwynec
Edited by JPat Brown
Mykola Lebed was sentenced to death in Poland in 1934. He died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1998.
By various accounts, he was an assassin, a freedom fighter, a terrorist, a hero, a villain, a prisoner, a refugee, a Nazi collaborator, a Nazi target, a writer, and a war criminal. To the Central Intelligence Agency, which bankrolled his activities for close to half a century, he was known as “Uncle Louie.”
Lebed was one of the leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Referred to by some as a terrorist group and by others as freedom fighters, the OUN and its subsidiaries were accused not only of political assassinations in Poland, but also of ethnic cleansing in Ukraine during the mid-20th century.
Matt
Thanks for exposing the LIES in English book. Heck you could write a series of essays simply going over all the lies and inconsistencies and misinformation coming from the authors(Cullen/Carr/English/Ranalli/etc etc). I imagine it would be a 5 part series too
Matt
Oh yeah. Personally I thought TJ English had a lot of fluff. As an author(and it seems to be his style) he seems to write very thick long books. As mush as you hate Carr (not saying you should not lol) the fascinating thing about Rifleman and Hitman is as a reader you get a view into how psychopathic, depraved, crazy, and dangerous the world is that they made their $$$. Sure there are inaccuracies as Flemmi and Martarano are career liars. But the amount of murders and scenarios behind those murders and solving of many murders is something the general public is not exposed to no? As a former prosecutor surely you know that the media job is to sensationalize. So English probably wanted his book to contain things not found in other books.
Hands down the best book on all of this is DEADLY ALLIANCE by Ralph Ranalli. That books blows English book out the waters IMHO
Matt
Here is one thing you and I differ on as we are probably at two different ends of the spectrum. Taking Billy Bulger out of the whole scenario and the Whitey Bulger/Steve Flemmi/John Martorano/Winter Hill gang history and story is still fascinating and may I add not the “norm”. What I mean by that is that Whitey Bulger had a long ass run along with Steve Flemmi due to their FBI protection. I mean am I wrong? Sure I buy that no one “feared” Bulger and Flemmi if they werent criminals nor associated with criminals. I buy that Bulger was terrorizing floks except perhaps those he was shaking down.
But to say he was just a run of the mill hood dismisses a whole lot of facts IMHO. The fact Bulger got the other crew off his back (Pat Nee and associates). The fact Bulger made millions upon millions from his criminal enterprises. The fact he was WAY BELOW THE RADAR to the public until Morris ran his mouth to the Globe is pretty phenomenal. Compare Bulger to Gotti and a whole lot of organized crime figures who are flashy and want everyone to know they are gangsters.
Now I could be way off base as I dont work in law enforcement nor ine the area you are an expertise in so forgive me if I am jumping to conclusions. Sure I buy the media “sensationalized” Bulger due to his brother but its still an incredible story even with all the media flaws. I meanif Bulger had cut himself off from Stanley and Grieg he may have never been caught. How even more incredible would the story be IF he had gotten away scott free no?
The bigger picture is the exposure of just how far the FBI is willing to go and who to use as informants. The media is making Bulger scarier and more powerful than he was to the general public but he was certainly a monster to those he murdered as ALL of the Winter Hill Gang. I think you are minimizing the importance of Bulger and not giving him enough credit. When you look at the incredible criminal career of Steve Flemmi and Martorano and Winter Hill and the Anguilos and Bulger in totality its still riveting and mind blowing . My 2 cents
Oh yeah. Of course I look forward to reading all your views as you work on the inside of the judicial system. Am I wrong? Was Bulger just a run of the mill criminal and ONLY got notoriety due to his brother? Was Bulger 25 year run the norm (regardless of his FBI protection)? Was the fact he would have gotten away if not for Grieg the norm? You see where I am going with this line of questioning?
Jerome:
Good questions, sorry for the late response.
Understand that for the murders committed in the gang wars. Howie Winter, Jimmy Flemmi, Steve Flemmi, and Frank Salemme were not prosecuted for any during the time nor were other people. (S. Flemmi and Salemme would be indicted for blowing up Fitzgerald’s car and S. Flemmi for one of the Bennett murders). They were the Roxbury gang that was not directly involved with the McLaughlin/Winter Hill war but used it as a cover to get rid of the Bennett Brothers and also to do some of the hits for the North End. A remarkable thing was that of the 60 killed in the gang wars very few were ever prosecuted. There was an idea it was only gangsters killing gangsters so who cared.
Bulger murdered his Southie rivals who were part of Nee’s Mullin gang but never bothered Nee. I’d suggest those two came to some type of accommodation and Nee was happy not to split the proceeds with the others. Clearly he knew McGonagle, King and Leonard were offed by Whitey but he remained his buddy and got him involved in the IRA stuff including the McIntyre murder. It wasn’t so much Whitey got them off his back but that Nee betrayed his friends.
Bulger’s money came from the tribute other bookies paid to keep him off their backs as well as the dope dealers in Southie who he could strong arm. Bookies are mostly non-violent guys looking to make a living and are easily strong armed if not protected by someone. Angiulo had the guys who he protected who paid him tribute; Whitey and Stevie had those he didn’t have.
Whitey ran below the radar because of his FBI connection. I never knew until Connolly’s trial that any inquiry made about Whitey over the CJIS record system which was run by the FBI was sent to the Whitey’s handler which was Connolly. If any LEO inquired CJIS about Whitey or Stevie then Connolly would know about it. That way he could keep a track of what was happening regarding him.
Can’t compare anyone to Gotti because he was the one who wanted attention. Bulger didn’t want it. One thing to note was that Bulger really never left Southie/Quincy except to go on trips. Billy McDermott a lieutenant detective in Brookline testified at Whitey’s trial about photos he took of the gangsters gathering in Brookline. He had S. Flemmi and Salemme meeting but Whitey never went there. He was a pure local guy.
If Bulger didn’t have Greig I have doubts he would have survived. He needed her to get his drugs, food, and manage many things in his life. He wasn’t a guy who could go off on his own. He didn’t have that type of confidence. Look at how he lived – holed up in an apartment as if he was in a prison cell for 14 years afraid to go outside much and peeking out the window thinking someone was watching him. That tells a lot about his insecurities.
Of course Bulger was a monster to those he murdered but he never murdered anyone by himself. He always was with someone else and for the most part it was someone else doing the murders. Eddie Connors and Brian Halloran he used some type of grease gun along with Flemmi in first one and Nee in second one. He shot Barrett in the back of the head going down the stairs. I have a hard time putting the women murders on him because Flemmi story doesn’t make sense: no one brings their girl friend or step-daughter to another guy to murder them because the other guy tells them to do it. Flemmi murdered them. Nor was he any part of the Wheeler Tulsa murder or the Callahan murders, Martorano did those. Only in a screw ball prosecution could the guy who was hired, paid $50,000, and murdered the person he was hired to hit and then the only guy who could tie him into the murder the guy who hired him blame someone else. Every story surround the Jai Alai murders implicating Whitey make no sense, it was a Martorano hit for $$ and when the guy who hired him was suspect after he couldn’t buy the Miami business was he hit.
I bought into the Big Whitey story but the more I look at it he was really a local tough willing to use a gun to threaten people mainly. He had muscle of Weeks and Flemmi, the latter being the one who the other bookies really feared as Jimmy Katz testified at the trial.
As I said before Greig was important to Bulger’s 16 year jaunt; along with that was the disinterest of the FBI for many years to really look for him. Were Bulger a real gangster he’d have dumped Greig and Stanley and gone on his own. His inability to do this sunk him because it was more likely the woman would be recognized (as she was) than some moll he picked up in his travels.
Keep the questions coming. They help to focus me.
Matt
Thanks for the very thorough reply. I am currently reading Deal with the Devil by Peter Lance. It details Greg Scarpa and his TEI history. His story parallels Steve Flemmi more so than Whitey Bulger in terms of length of being an informant and amount or murders they committed. It would be an interesting post or series of posts as to WHY John Connolly was thrown in prison but not one of Greg Scarpa handlers (Lin DeVecchio). Actually that would be an excellent analysis as DeVecchio had charges brought up on him also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindley_DeVecchio
Most interesting blog.
I wonder if Billy C. Played for my namesake…CoachCrowley at Southie in the late 50’s.
Some of the finest folks I have ever known are from Southie.
Owned a restaurant for three years there.
Simply loathed the winter .
Played against Coach Crowley at Southie; I was coached by head coach Ted Galligan at B.C. High, 59-62, Jimmy Cotter, Paul Hunter and another were assistants. We practiced on the same field, Columbia Park, across from Old Harbor, as the South Boston High School Team practiced there too, same time, same place. By my junior year, we had our own football field back of BC High.
I humbly say I got the MVP trophy in football . . .it could have been given to anyone of us . . .we were good . . .7-2, lost 6-0 to English, last minute punt run back for a touchdown . . .and we lost to Tech 12-6 . . .we beat Catholic Memorial and Malden Catholic, etc
Four guys on that team including the two captains, Skip Sviokla and Mike Annanis, ended up playing on Harvard’s Football team. Skip and Steve Renere became Harvard Med M.D., Mike got his PH.D. in school psychology, and Paul Saba got his law degree from Harvard. Three of the guys were on the team that beat Yale, 29-29. Remember the headlines: Harvard beats Yale: 29-29.
Skip wrote a great book: “From Harvard to Hell and Back; The Story of a Doctor’s Struggle with Opiate Addiction.” All interested in the field should read it.
Great guys, great memories. Time Magazine wrote about the two fastest high school students in America, one, Chris Shea, was on our high school football team . . .a year ahead of us . . .the other Freddy Hamlin, from Trade High School . . . .both had run a 9.6 or 9.7 hundred yard dash in high school
What great times: Otis Coleman at Trade, Barry Hickman at English (ran that punt back, played for Wake Forest) . . . .great times . . .the Quincy YMCA, summertime basketball, where we played against teams from all over the City and Greater Boston . . .Peter Varney we played against, he caught the TD or two point conversion that tied the Harvard game against Yale . . .
And of course we remember all the fist fights because all of us were on the football, hockey, basketball, boxing, wrestling teams, and we remember Jackie Oliver from Milton, football, gymnastics, wrestlin’ and Jimmy Eugley from Savin Hill, wrestlin’, great strength . . .and the weightlifters Bobby Simonin, Buddy Taro, Jackie Darling, Jack Clyde Dempsey from Brighton, and Bobby Mancini and Rima (Big John, Rima Baranus( from Savin Hill . . .)
and the girl in the blue sued dress at the Rexacana Ballroom
” . . .both had run a 9.6 or 9.7 hundred yard dash in high school”
I ran an unofficial 9.7 with hand held stopwatch. I did a race for fun against the fastest kid in Brockton High back in 1972. Beat him by a few yards. I was fast but never ran track. Flunked Spanish so I couldn’t play high school sports. I learned Spanish and spoke it well but hated the teachers so I never did a thing in class. My bad.
With all due respect. In the mists of time some things do not appear clear. In the meeting at Chandlers, Howie Winter decided that Jimmy Bulger would run South Boston because he had the gambling background, as in collecting debts and the reputation to back it up. Tommy King and Pat Nee were not happy with the turn of events but Howie Winter had final say. The life of Jimmy Bulger is a long period of events that seemed to go his way, but more subtle than people may remember. Shooting people to death on the waterfront in 1982 makes for a memorable movie scene, getting the okay from Howie Winter in 1972 really made him solid. It is my understanding that Howie was impressed with the fact Jimmy had done hard time, his brother Billy was an elected official and Jimmy handled himself very well most of the time.
Norwood Born you bring up a very solid fact. One that perhaps you or matt could shed light on. A whole LOT went Whitey Bulger way. What does one attribute it to? Luck? I find that hard to believe. Planning by Bulger? That would be a huge part no? As psychopathic, dangerous, crazy, evil, etc etc that Flemmi and Bulger are(were) they outfoxed a lot of criminals no? They became the bosses and put themselves in the position to work with the FEDS. The guy who was more dangerous than Bulger (if thats even possible) is Flemmi. He survived the infamous Irish Gang war while Bulger was serving time. I mean so many other criminals were killed but not Steve Flemmi. Amazing.
Jerome, I am a long way from an expert on Jimmy Bulger. I have read that Pat Nee was asked , why did you not kill Jimmy Bulger when you had the chance? To much heat because his brother was a highly elected official. Also, one thing about Jimmy Bulger no one disputes is he kept to his area for decades and he kept a low profile. Being a TEI for the FBI was number 1 in keeping him out of jail. A lot of mobsters with nobody to answer to would drink, do cocaine, spend money out in public in an obvious manner in the 1970s and 1980s and he was not known for any of that.Also, he was smarter than most of the guys around him . I brought up to Matt once that in other parts of the United States, LA ,Chicago, Miami, NYC Jimmy Bulger could have been shot by the police and had a gun planted on him. That did not happen in Massachusetts. All in all a very interesting set of events.
Thanks Norwood Born for the feedback. Appreciate it
The Boston Federal Jury acquitted John Connolly of all counts that he leaked information that led to anyone’s murder . . .Not Guilty. Sadly, some unscrupulous or negligent writers/reporters/columnist still write that John Connolly leaked names of persons so that they’d be killed. Connolly’s supervisor: John Morris leaked Bulger’s and Flemmi’s names so that they’d be murdered, so they wouldn’t testify that he was accepting illegal cash from them.
Morris, the admitted attempted murderer, is set free in Witness Protection by the STERNS GANG (Sterns, Durham, Wyshak et al.) and Morris’s perjurious testimony, largely disbelieved by the Boston Jury, is used by the FEDs to hunt the Great White Whale, Billy Bulger, via the persecution/prosecution of another innocent man, John Connolly.
The Federal Prosecution/Persecution of Innocent Men and the obscenely lenient deals the FEDs cut with serial killers and attempted murderers stinks to high heaven.
I suppose T.J. English will jump on the bandwagon and laud the FEDs.
I wonder if T J English has a FBI file ?
in other news
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/sep/18/writers-under-surveillance-book-launch-ii/
Our first book is here! See the hidden lives of famous writers, as told by their FBI files
by Michael Morisy
September 18, 2018
The Federal Bureau of Investigation files on James Baldwin, Ernest Hemingway, and Susan Sontag, and a dozen famous writers have a lot of stories to tell, and over the past eight years the MuckRock team has been digging through them. Today, we’re excited to tell those stories in a new format: a 400-page volume that brings the most funny, frightening, poignant, and provocative tales about the intersection of surveillance and freedom to life, as told through those primary source documents.
Read More
also see
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2018/09/13/north-carolina-banned-a-study-on-sea-level-rise-could-it-mean-more-hurricane-florence-destruction/
North Carolina banned a study on sea-level rise. Could it mean more Hurricane Florence destruction?
pencil Author: Abbie Bennett, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)
why not !
I worked for Walter Silva from Nantucket, who started
this program at UMass Amherst
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/09/15/from-prison-college/HLtZ7QIJKmA2BJUd1rib6N/story.html
From prison to college: Consortium puts inmates in a positive ‘pipeline’
Jose Bou, who completed his bachelor’s degree from Boston University while in prison, teaches at Holyoke Community College.
By Morgan Hughes GLOBE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER 15, 2018
Like all FBI agents who handled TEIs . . .John Connolly handled about a dozen, to my knowledge over his career . . . .John’s job was not to “protect” his informants but to use them as conduits for Information. The DEAL which the FBI had with all informants was the FBI itself would not arrest a Top Echelon Informant for criminal activity like gambling or bookmaking, but would arrest if the Informant engaged in violence or murder, of course. Even the admittedly corrupt rogue agent John Morris testified under oath that he told his TEIs “no violence, no murders.” That was the sine qua non Condition of continuing as a TEI.
DEA agents and local cops do the same with drug dealers/users as RATs. As long as the rat continues to inform on higher ups (bigger dealers) he’s not arrested for his more petty dealings. All cops do this with all Informants. Incarcerate all the informants and crime would run more rampant, and the Big Dogs would never get caught.
Someone tipped Bulger and Flemmi off to the location of a wiretap. Probably so that they wouldn’t be arrested for “gambling” while they were providing invaluable INFO that helped take down a good segment of the entire New England Mafia.
The Falsehoods perpetuated by the FEDs, MSM, et al, were (1) that FBI agents were condoning murders by TEIs and/or (2) were protecting TEIs who the FBI agent knew had committed or was about to commit a murder while a TEI.
No Boston cop, State cop, or Fed cop knew who committed those notorious murders in the mid-late 1970s, 1980s, otherwise they would have arrested the suspected killer.
Remember, the Boston Federal Jury acquitted John Connolly of all counts that he leaked inform
Bill:
I believe John said his job was to protect them. The FBI deal with Top Echelon Informants was they could continue in their business. As John Connolly said he never asked them what they were doing. When he was asked to follow up the Wheeler homicide in Tulsa he didn’t. After a second request he closed it out. When he was asked to look into the alleged extortion of the liquor store from Skippo he wanted to wire Skippo up and then did nothing else. He certainly wasn’t going to investigate one of his informants.
Of course we are not dealing with people giving information on rats, we’re dealing with two criminal gang leaders who may have been giving information on lower level people as well as Italians in the Mafia. Here the Big Dogs were protected. Morris tipped them off as to the Bahorian wiretap. He did that by going to Connolly and telling him about it. Connolly did nothing about it. He told Morris to tell them which he did and got five grand for the information. You see when you paint Morris black and you see that Connolly knew what Morris was doing then what does that say about Connolly.
The FBI had no jurisdiction over murders. It was not concerned if its TEIs were involved in them. But it was protecting guys who it should have known were murderers. As far as knowing who murdered whom, I’m not sure of that. It is clear that no real investigations into the murders was done although Flemmi was indicted for one of the Bennet Brothers murders so some work was done. If you close your eyes to a murder and don’t investigate it or course you can’t arrest anyone.
The federal jury in Boston found Martorano was lying so disbelieved any evidence that Connolly had any involvement with any of the murders. That really wasn’t hard because there was very little evidence that he did other than Martorano whose evidence was less than compelling. Interesting though that jury found he leaked the information that an indictment was coming down and that was after he had retired from the FBI.
Yes, we see how even recent history is twisted and contorted out of all recognition by the likes of Carr, Cullen and English. Imagine a real historian/reporter twenty or fifty or one hundred years from now trying to DISCERN the real story based on the distorted SLOP spewed by character assassinating lowlifes like Carr, Cullen, Lehr, and their corrupt allies in the FEDs, like the Sterns Gang (Sterns, Durham, Wyshak et al) and other corrupt FED PROSECUTORS, DOJ-ATTORNEYS?
The whole “rogue agent” hallucination was a farce; there was one rogue agent in Boston, John Morris, an admittedly corrupt cop and attempted murderer, who sold his soul to the Sterns Gang in their Jihad to get Billy Bulger and persecute other innocent men in the Boston Area. The real rogues were in the FED Prosecutors Offices and in their FED bosses offices (DOJ/FBI) who green-lighted the Boston FED Office’s every move. Together DC and Boston FEDs invented the “rogue agent” theory as a way to limit liability in civil actions and as a way to persecute political opponents. They decided to sell some down the drain. You see, Wyshak, the Jihadi Javert, on a Jihad, (delusionally thinking he was on a Crusade to get Billy Bulger, another wholly innocent man like John Connolly), hated local FBI agents, and recruited cops from other agencies, DEA, State Police (whom he deputized as FEDs), to wage his own personal jihad against the FBI and to get his great own great white whale, Billy Bulger.
Oh, yes, we know the depths of their corruption. Hopefully future historians will read this blog and my books. I toot my own horn for a second: Twenty years of research from a guy who grew up, hung out, and lived in those neighborhoods practically his entire life . . .except 8 years in the DC area . . . how many authors spent 25 years working out at L-Street, jogging daily with the noon time nuts, hanging out around and drinking at Joyce & Keenes, Moakley’s, Connors, Bulldogs in his teens and twenties and thirties, and stopping in at one time or another in every pub on Dot Ave and most in Southie, up until 1980,when he continued to hang out in the neighborhoods at gyms and meetings for the next 25 years. Stone cold sober. And stone cold sober he researched these matters and came to the humble conclusion: Innocent men were persecuted and prosecuted by corrupt FEDs; Innocent men’s reputations were assailed by malicious men in the Main Stream Media.
As David Gray sang, “Lies, ruin, disease; into wounds like these, let the truth sting.”
The liars in the MEDIA and FEDs continue to have their say, and few honest men nay-say them.
Good luck to Matt and men like him, on this day, we happy few, we band of brothers, set forth to set the record straight. Even though we disagree on many points, we do agree we’ve been fed malarkey for decades by the FEDs and MSM in the Boston Area, DC and beyond.
Up the Republic!