T.E. English on June 18, 2012 wrote about Whitey’s case. It’s an interesting take on the case because he has written some good books about other criminals usually connected to New York City so he has a feel for a good crime story. But it does point out that even a good writer can make some fundamental errors when he is not close to the situation and doesn’t know the terrain or the players and their biases.
He’s on the same page as I am that the FBI wants this to go away but he shows some confusion when he tries to explain it.
Early on he brings up Harvey Silverglate whom he calls “a prominent Boston criminal-defense attorney.” He omits mentioning Silverglate’s strong animosity to all things Bulger. Silverglate is Dershowitz’s big buddy who along with Dershowitz opposed one of Billy’s friends for a judgeship causing a minor ruckus at the State House.
Silverglate’s point is there is a cover-up going on. Silverglate says the feds could have tried Whitey quickly in California on gun charges and locked him up for 30 years but they brought his back to Boston to prevent exposing “a pattern of secrecy and cover-up going back generations.” Unfortunately Silverglate has it ass-end-backwards. If they tried him on the easy gun charge case in California and they never tried him in Boston that was the way to do an effective cover-up.
But lets get real, there’s no way the feds can walk away from all Whitey’s murders. They have no choice but to prosecute him for them. Silverglate’s venom made his thought process murky which is unusual for him.
English suggests that the cover-up took place when they dropped the RICO charges and planned to concentrate on the murder charges. That also makes no sense. Whitey’s defense to the murder charges is that he had immunity for them. The issue of the FBI involvement with Bulger has already been brought up by Whitey’s attorney, Carney. He can explore the corrupt history just as well in the murder case as in a RICO case.
I’m not a big fan of the feds but it seems odd for English to complain that they didn’t take a streamlined approach by wrapping it up quickly (by trying him on the gun charges) then to complain when they take a streamlined approach (limiting the case to the murder charges).
I’m of the mind at this time as I’ve noted previously the case won’t go to trial. It’s a chess game now — Whitey’s trying to figure out his next move. His aim is to spend his retirement years in comfort. That’s the thing that’s keeping the case alive.
English notes that one person who concurs with his cover-up theory is John Connolly. English had a telephone conversation with him from his present home in the prison in Chipley, Florida. I’ll talk about what Connolly said to English on Friday. You don’t want to miss that because it contains some stunning information.
Our friend former FBI ASAC Fitzpatrick was interviewed. English calls him Connolly’s nemesis. I’ll talk about that some time in the future but let it rest for now that you don’t invited your nemesis to your wedding.
Fitzpatrick told English that he investigated the 75 Street affair and it was a clear violation of the Hobbs Act (an extortion). “We had Billy Bulger dead in his tracks.” He blames O’Sullivan for deep sixing that case. Fitzpatrick never lets the truth stand in the way of his self-glorification as we’ve seen when he claimed to have taken down the Anguilo mob (or as I’ll show in a later post that Brian Halloran was his informant). Fitzpatrick wrote that he resigned from the FBI “early in 1987.” He was not part of the FBI at the time the 75 State Street investigation which first started in 1988 and ran into 1989. It’s hard to square that with his statement. We’ve seen that Fitzpatrick felt that he and Billy were locked in some type of mortal combat
English also talked to Tom Foley the state trooper who suggests the feds just want it to go away which seems to be the universal consensus. (I’m always nervous when others agree with me.)
English gets it 100% wrong when he says O’Sullivan told a “bold face lie” when denied he didn’t know Whitey and Stevie were informants. He misunderstands the purpose of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform’s investigation. (I’ll write how that went off on a tangent.) He misreads Judge Harrington’s involvement in the Deegan case and accuses him of being complicit in the framing of Limone and Salvati. (I think he’s left himself open for a libel suit with that assertion.)
He suggests that the FBI protected Bulger and Flemmi to hide the sordid dealings around the Deegan murder. That makes no sense — Flemmi’s brother Vinny “The Bear” was involved in Deegan’s hit of March 12, 1965. Flemmi wasn’t going to talk about it if he knew anything. Further, he did not become an informant until November, 1965. Whitey at the time was still in prison or just out so he knew nothing about it nor did he have any connection with Flemmi at that time.
There are other things that show a basic misunderstanding of the issues. I’m surprised because I thought English would have done a better job writing for a national publication.
Too many things surrounding the case have been accepted as fact without any support. For instance English writes, “The evidence against Whitey is formidable.” I wonder if English knows that a federal jury in the Connolly case rejected all the prior testimony of Martorano, Weeks and Salemme that had no independent corroboration (Flemmi did not testify). Has English figured out why Whitey would kill Flemmi’s girlfriend and the girl Flemmi abused since childhood?
I’m trying to bring the group think as exhibited by English back a little bit toward the truth. I’ve attempted to do that in “Don’t Embarrass The Family” which provides a foundation for a fuller understanding of these matters. I’m also using this blog to make a historic record.