Background to Boston Gang Wars: Getting to the Truth

Two major difficulties exist in trying to recapture the true past among gangsters: 1) gangsters act in secret and 2) they are inveterate liars. Kevin Weeks, who became the third member of Whitey Bulger’s gang, described the need for secrecy well when he said: “the idea of committing a crime is getting away with it.” Investigative reporter Selwyn Raab in his introduction to his book, Five Families, about the New York Mafia pointed out, “documented data about the Mafia’s clandestine activities is usually difficult to verify.” He wrote his book in great part based on interviews with Mafia members. These interviews are also highly untrustworthy sources.

The most monumental obstacle in accurately reporting on gangsters is what they say should not be relied upon. Fundamentally, to be a gangster, you must live by lies. Their entire lives are built on lies. They openly admit that lie are necessary to carry on their depredations. John Martorano, admitted killer of 20 people, spoke to this when he said: “as a fugitive all one can do is lie. . . . The only way I could survive was lie and use cash.” Years later writing a book about his murderous life,  he could not escape his gangster past and filled the book with lies.

Martorano was a vicious gangsters living in the Boston area during the Gang Wars. He was murderous and violent nature was only exceeded by a few other gangsters of the time, such as Steven Flemmi, Steve’s brother Vincent “Jimmy the Bear” Flemmi, Joe “the Animal” Barbosa, and the Mafia killer Larry Baione.  Whitey Bulger’s place in the murderous line would be where the line stretched around the corner with others like Howie Winter and Joe McDonald. Pat Nee for pure treachery might even be in front of Whitey.

Why Whitey is regarded as the supreme Boston Gangster is another story. It has nothing to do with his evilness but with a media vendetta against another. Without the media, Whitey would have been just another street thug with a more violent streak. Pushing him to the front showed not only the pettiness of Boston media and writers but also their narcissist nature.

Along with the need to lie, experts agree that gangsters who murder have antisocial personality disorders (ASPD) and lack normal human emotions. For most people murdering another would produce a profound reaction in one’s conscience. This does not happen to those with ASPD. Tommy Sperrazza, called “the single most dangerous sociopath in the annals of crime in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts” who murdered two young girls with a screwdriver said, “once you murder the first person the rest are easy.”  John Martorano operated the same way.  He admits to rwenty murders but still tells us in his book that, despite his murders, he is a good person.

People with ASPD do not react like others when questioned about their crimes. They are so adept at lying that it becomes second nature to them. Frank DiMento, a Boston lawyer who I worked with, represented Larry Baione. Baione had been caught red handed with stolen jewelry. He was facing charges for receiving stolen property.

DiMento told me that Baione took a lie detector test. He passed it easily asserting he did not know the jewelry was stolen. He beat the lie detector because lying for him was so easy. Fencing stolen goods was one of his occupations. He showed no emotional indications that would cause the lie detector machine to respond and expose his lies to the examiner.

That is the problem with attempting to discern the truth from men with ASPD. They may not even know they are lying.  They lie without conscience.

It is especially absurd to use the government to use them to testify in court. But, yet, prosecutors still do it regularly and play along with the gangsters’ lies.  In fact, prosecutors facilitate the gangsters biggest lie.  Prosecutors know the jury will greet a gangsters testimony with skepticism so they ask gangsters:  why a jury should believe their testimony when their lives are based on lies.  The gangsters respond that if they lie, the prosecutor would rescind the deal they have made with the government and then charge them with perjury.

The gangster knows this is not true.  The last thing a prosecutor would do is charge the gangster, who must be a crucial witness for a prosecutor to put him on the stand, with perjury.   It would destroy the prosecutor’s whole case and make the prosecutor look foolish.

What the gangsters really mean when they answer the prosecutor’s question is that they made up a story for the prosecutor and that the prosecutor believed the story. The story fit into or completed the prosecutor’s pre-existing belief. The gangster knows if he sticks to this story, he will suffer no repercussions. The gangster told the prosecutor what the prosecutor wanted to hear.  If he lied, then he just has to stick to the lie. Truth be damned.  The funny thing is that sometimes the gangsters first version of his story is not what the prosecutor needs and they cannot reach a deal.  But, then a gangster will come back with a new version, and a deal is made.  I guess the gangster mis-remembered the first time he spoke.

Martorano was a major government witness against two persons, Whitey Bulger and retired FBI Agent John Connolly (no relation). The jury verdict after the Connolly trial showed the jury disbelieved Martorano’s evidence. It did convict FBI Agent Connolly on other charges, mostly minor. He received a severe sentence of ten years mainly because one of his crimes involved tampering with a case before the court.

That wasn’t good enough for the federal prosecutors.  The same federal prosecuting team again tried FBI Agent Connolly in a Florida state court charging him with murder based on Martorano’s testimony and that of a worse criminal, Steven Flemmi.  They succeeded in Florida of convicting him of murder by gun.

On appeal to make the conviction of Connolly stand, the Florida appeals court issued a nonsensical decision. In effect it ruled that if two people were planning to strangle another and at some time during that planning one of them was wearing a gun, then even if neither person had a gun on him at the time they strangled the person, they could be charged with murder by gun because one wore the gun when planning the murder.

FBI Agent Connolly has been in prison since 2002. His first parole date is 2039 when he will be 99 years old. He murdered no one. He is serving time because two gangsters each with twenty or more murders attributed to them testified against him in exchange for magnificent gifts.

Matorano also testified against Whitey. Whitey then 83 years old and was never going to get out of prison because of the multitude of charges he was facing.  Martarano’s testimony was hardly necessary. Whitey was murdered in prison in October 2018.

Martorano’s deal for testifying against an FBI agent and a fellow criminal astounds the imagination.  HI sentence was reduced to 12 years for 20 admitted-to murders, with credit for time served.  In all, Martorano served less than 6 months a murder.  Plus, he did not have to testify against anyone else who was involved with him in the murders he committed.  The icing on the Matarano deal: he was rewarded with twenty thousand dollars from the government upon his release from prison.  I always wondered how the government came up with that sum: a thousand dollars for each person he admitted to murdering?

Pat Nee from South Boston, who labeled himself as “a criminal and an Irishman” was a man who spoke from experience. He slithered along the edges of the mobster wars but close enough that he to often find himself in danger.  He wrote in his fanciful book: “Most reporters and authors who write Southie gangster books use CIs – confidential informers – as sources. However, seldom is the majority of information compiled by these sources correct information. Confidential informers are self-serving criminals who lie.”

An example of this is Steve Flemmi, a criminal even worse than Martorano who who was also put on the stand to testify against Whitey Bulger. His girlfriend of many years, Debbie Davis, met another guy on a Mexican vacation. She told Flemmi she was breaking up with him. Debbie was flying out of town to be with her new friend the next day. Flemmi asked to see her one last time before she went away. Debbie met him and Flemmi murdered her. When John Martorano realized Debbie was no longer around, Martorano asked Flemmi what happened to her. Flemmi said that he “accidentally strangled her.”  Was it a neck massage that had gone wrong?  No.  Flemmi and his jealously could not stand her leaving him.  He murdered her, nothing accidental about it.

Years later when the federal prosecutors were looking to build cases against Whitey Bulger.  The prosecutors made a deal with Flemmi.  Flemmi included testimony that he murdered Debbie because Whitey told him to murder her. The prosecutors liked the answer because it helped bolster their case.  The prosecutors chose to believe him even though they should have realized that Flemmi was enraged at Debbie because she was leaving him, that Flemmi never took orders from Whitey, that Flemmi was more feared and dangerous than Whitey, and Whitey had no motive to murder Debbie.

To satisfy the prosecutors goal of getting Whitey, Flemmi put Whitey at the scene of the murder and made Whitey the boss.  None of the prosecutors had a problem presenting this story to the jury.  The jury, on the other hand, did have a problem with it.  The jury found the prosecutors had not proven their case against Whitey on that murder.

The lies by criminals make it difficult to learn the truth. They have no allegiance to the truth, only to themselves. They have no allegiance to friends as the old saw is regularly repeated: “there is no honor among thieves.”

Along with the lies, gangsters hold severe grudges and hatreds. The Italian Mafia who hung around in Boston’s North End had an abiding hatred for Irish gangsters, especially those from South Boston (Southie). The sentiment was returned as the Irish gangsters had no love for the Mafia members.  The hatred rears its head throughout the Boston Gang Wars.

This Irish/Italian feud had nothing to do with the relations between the Italians and Irish in Boston who were not criminals. They got along fine frequently marrying each other. Although, it was not unusual back then to hear an Irish-Italian marriage referred to as a mixed marriage, a term usually used to refer to marriages between different races or religions.

Deciphering through the lies in the testimony and lies in the accounts of the murders of the Boston Gang Wars was no easy task.  But, with the fundamental core recognition that all gangsters lie and lie constantly, I believe that I have discovered much of the truth about the Boston Gang Wars of the Sixties and Seventies.

9 Comments

  1. Being Irish from East Boston,it was a good bet I would be
    In a “mixed marriage.”Our parish,St.Marys Star of the Sea,no
    longer in existence, was a good blend of Irish and Italian families.
    The church,the school,CYO, are all gone. Thankfully my
    “Mixed marriage” is happily intact.

  2. https://www.pbs.org/video/wbcn-and-the-american-revolution-bzco7k/

    WBCN AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
    WBCN and The American Revolution
    Special | 1h 55m 54s

    In 1972 Danny Schecter approached me and asked me if if
    would be willing to produce an hour long weekly criminal Justice news program for WBCN fm.
    I was Executive Director of Libra at this time.
    Libra was a community based correctional center operating out of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Harvard Square.
    I said yes.We called the show Lock Up. It ran from 1972 through 1977.
    I recruited a friend named Danny Puopolo to help produce the show.
    Danny had been sentenced to Walpole prison with a guy
    named Floppiano in 1965 for kidnapping and armed robbery.
    Floppiano would later distinguish himself by wacking people for the Boston Mob family.
    See link above for more information

    In other news

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/31/fbi-agent-charged-sex-crimes-against-children-florida/5663692001/

    FBI agent David Harris ,who investigated sex crimes against children is charged for sex crimes against children
    Jeff Burlew
    Tallahassee Democrat

  3. Please thoroughly proof read before publishing the book. There are numerous typos and wrong grammar in some parts. Just a suggestion of course

  4. EXCELLENT. The book is going to be OUTSTANDING. Thank you.

  5. How corrupt are the DOJ, FBI,DEA and Customs to give generous deals to the top hitmen in Boston? They are either total buffoons or knowingly assisted the Mafia. So did the Boston media. The two best FBI agents against the Mafia in New England were Rico and Connolly according to Donnie Brasco ( Jo Pistone). Who did the Feds target based on Mafia disinformation? The most effective law enforcement operatives against LCN. The DOJ and FBI knew that the Russian Collusion story was a hoax invented by the Clinton campaign, a political dirty trick yet still treated it as valid. to the detriment of our country. Those Federal institutions need a house cleaning or they need to be abolished. Back in the 80s under Reagan the FBI did it’s work. They locked up the top financial swindlers. ( Boesky, Levine, Keating and Milliken) the top drug dealers and the Mafia Dons. Then the Clintons came to power and everything was for sale ( Mark Rich and 400 other pardons) and all institutions were compromised. The Clintons were a plague on the USA.

  6. william m connolly

    I have written four books addressing, in part, the corruption of the federal prosecutors persecuting John Connolly and others, and the blatant lies of the Jihadi Javert Fred Wyshak’s witnesses. One example, reporter David Boeri correctly wrote that Flemmi in prison from 1995 to 2002, repeatedly testified, twice under oath that John Connolly was honest, never took a dime, and never said or indicated the TEI’s could hurt anyone. TEI’s were repeatedly told No Violence, No Murders.
    Four of my ten books addressing Federal Prosecutorial Corruption and other judicial corruption are 1. The Fix: The Corruption of Massachusetts Courts and Agencies; 2. Three Billboards Outside Boston: Prosecute the Persecutorial Federal Prosecutors; 3. From Trial Court to the United States Supreme Court; Anatomy of a Free Speech Case, with Paul Walkowski about the St. Patrick’s Day Parade case intellectual corruption of Mass Judges, Academia, and Media; and 5. One Life how the U.S. Supreme Court Deliberately Distorted the History, Science and Law of Abortion.

    In Massachusetts, John Connolly was convicted of four minor counts, only one of which allegedly occured while an FBI agent; corrupt, attempted murderer Morris, leaking TEI names hoping they’d be killed, said John Connolly gave him a case of wine with an envelope in it with cash in it, On testimony Morris could not recall where the envelope was and Morris said John Connolly never mentioned the envelope,

    Read Matt’s books and those four books with an open mind. The Jihadi Javert Fred Wyshak and his bosses and his cohorts, including Mueller and Comey, falsely invented the Rogue FBI Agent theory (read the book RICO) and threw the full weight at of the FEDs at the FBI agent on the lowest rung of the Agency,

    We’ve documented many other abuses of power by the FEDs and the judges often went along and turned a blind eye to abuse: Research the Swartz case, the Boston Police Officer Conley case, the Probation Officer’s case, the Caswell Motel case, the City Councilor Turner’s case, the persecutions via attempting to squeeze and bankrupt defendantsL consider State Senator and lawyer Joyce who was driven to suicide, and consider too the Finneran Case and others were persons are forced to admit to “perjury” under the hammer of threatened bankruptcy and years in prison.

    Martorano, too, was allowed to keep all his assets. And Flemmi agreed to change his sworn testimony and then back up Martorano’s lie that Whitey said that Connolly said “if Callahan talks we’ll all be in trouble.” On this slim reed, this patently false recovered memory of Martorano and Flemmi, coached by corrupt Federal Prosecutors, the Miami Courts sent John Connolly to life in prison, The Miami’s reasoning was labelled by a dissenting judge, as “sheer sophistry,”

    Rage against the dying of the light. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do and say nothing.

    Thank God, John Connolly is now home. As Jesus said, “Peace to those of good will.” To those not of good will like corrupt Feds, special forces including free Americans should raise their voices against these power abusers in Black Robes and Suits: Corrupt Feds, Wyshak and his cohorts, Mueller and Comey, et alia.