Early Morning Report – Monday July 15, 2013

We are waiting this week to hear from Benji Ditchman. I’m not sure exactly how this will play out. He could come as soon as today or more likely later in the week. I wonder if the prosecutor is thinking of using him as its last witness. That would not be the wisest way to leave the case with his foul smell clinging to everyone in the courtroom. It would be too tempting to Carney to just stop at that point and to present no case.

Today I think we will hear from some more of the people who give a good flavor to the prosecution. These are the guys who worked under Whitey or were extorted by him. It may be easy for some jurors to shrug off the tales of the people who got great Christmas gifts from the government. It won’t be so easy for them to ignore the incessant banging away by the prosecution that Whitey was a guy to be feared and that no one did anything unless he received his blessing. I think the prosecution is overdoing it with this line of criminals but I have to admit it will be effective in painting the picture of who Whitey was and is.

Doesn’t it follow if he had such control that none of the murders would have been done without his giving the OK. How does defense counsel get around that? Here’s the game as I see it. Defense is willing to concede that Whitey ran South Boston. He was the head of all the gambling and drug dealing. He probably did some of the extortions. Obviously he did the money laundering. Fortnight testified – criminals lie and they do criminal things – and part of that would be hiding money and Whitey was the head criminal.

This concession is predicated upon the idea that Whitey was given permission by Jeremiah O’Sullivan to do these things. This will have to come from the testimony of Whitey. It will truly be fascinating to listen to his description of the quid-pro-quo that he gave to O’Sullivan that convinced O’Sullivan to do something probably no other assistant US attorney had done, and that is to give an open-ended immunity (or agreement not to prosecute) to a high level criminal.

But those who follow the Sunday story of state trooper John Naimovich will hear me tell of my interactions with O’Sullivan. My story will show he was not 100% on the level in his dealings with me. But that’ll come and it gives me a different look at things involving him. That’s why it will be hard for me to reject out of hand a story from Whitey that may seem ludicrous to others, especially jurors. What Carney and Brennan (C&B) have to do is to get that O’Sullivan across to the jury. That will be difficult.

The other item of interest will be whether Whitey also includes in his agreement with O’Sullivan the idea that he could commit murders. On the one hand it looks like he is going to do that because C&B have stayed away from challenging those who put him in the murders. For his claim to work he’ll have to admit all 19 murders, even those where Murderman puts him off in the distance in a crash car. He’ll have to have to make O’Sullivan’s actions be like that of a priest who can forgive past sins, and who can give a kind of future forgiveness, as I have seen happening when we were sent into situations of danger in the military.

So we’ll go through more painting Whitey black; we’ll hear evidence as Zac Hafer put it from the medical examiner who will testify the 25 bullets, .45 caliber, found in Eddie Connors, after he was taken from the telephone booth on Morrissey Boulevard located not more than a bridge away on the same street as the Boston Globe, caused his death.

I just looked up and see that Whitey has come into court wearing a light blue button down shirt. He’s picking up his appearance for some reason. All the lawyers are assembled. Here comes the judge.