Facts are facts people say. It is from these facts that people make conclusions. How then is it that from the same facts people come to opposite conclusions? That happens every day in jury settings where twelve or six people sit together and listen to facts, then discuss them, and disagree about what they add up to.
That’s something we are used to expecting. Something that we do not expect that is quite strange is when people disagree on the meaning of the facts but then come to the same conclusion. A good example of that happened the other day when a Boston Bigot Herald columnist Howard Carr wrote: “Think about Zip Connolly — “decorated” FBI agent now doing life in a Florida prison for a gangland hit in Florida. Or H. Paul Rico, another G -man who died in a prison hospital in Oklahoma after being arrested for yet another organized crime rubout in Oklahoma. And this is just the Boston office, where gangster Stevie Flemmi told the DEA that he and Whitey Bulger were bribing six — six! — agents.”
Carr’s conveniently leaves out that the victims were murdered by a guy he befriended who committed twenty plus murders and with whose bloody hands shared the profits of a book. His purpose was to say look at these two agents who were corrupt. It is an example of why the FBI should be abolished.
Now on the other hand there are those who point to these same agents, Connolly and Rico, and say, unlike Carr, that they were not corrupt at all despite being charged with crimes. Connolly was convicted but Rico died before his trial. They then argue because they weren’t corrupt and that they were prosecuted the FBI in allowing that to happen is corrupt and should be abolished.
This is an example of damned if you do and damned if you don’t do. Whether Connolly and Rico were corrupt or not either side uses its belief that it a reason why the FBI should be abolished.
Then you have the situation brought up by Carr of the other six agents who Flemmi said were on the take, that is being bribed. I wouldn’t believe anything Flemmi said since he is totally evil, known to perjure himself, and was self-schooled by himself and his fellow felons into agreeing with what he thought the prosecutors wanted.
However Kevin Weeks did mention four FBI agents who received gifts from Whitey Bulger at Christmas- Connolly, Morris, the Pipe (Jim Ring), and Agent Orange (John Newton). The latter two received some type of clock or similar gift which hardly amounted to a bribe. To be bribed mean you have to do something or promise to do something on account of the gift. It was never shown that these agents did anything even had they received those gifts.
As for Morris he testified he received less than twenty thousand dollars but said he never did anything for it. Connolly, on the other hand, always denied taking anything. Whitey through his lawyer alleged he gave him a couple of hundred thousand dollars but knowing how there were only two things important to Whitey, money and girls, it is doubtful there’s much truth in that.
What has never been explained to my satisfaction is why either Connolly or Rico would have been involved in any killings. The motives alleged were absurd. John Martorano the man who admitted doing the murders testified to their involvement in order not to suffer the consequences of them. He obviously knew the only way he could escape the full consequences was to give the prosecutors someone better than himself.
He gave him two FBI agents, none of them he ever met. How’s that for luck — never having met the guys but testifying against them through the use of hearsay. He said Connolly wanted the murder so that he would not go to prison if the victim testified even though there was no way the victim’s testimony could have brought that about. He said Rico wanted the victim murdered so he could get a share in a business owned by the victim. He also said that after the murder Rico met at the business with Flemmi which would have been the last thing a skilled former FBI agent would have done.
The curious thing about it is that Martorano’s brother was supposedly in the Mafia and his father was Mafia connected. The two agents most responsible for the Mafia’s downfall in the Greater Boston area were Connolly and Rico. Had they been on the take at the time, then the Mafia would not have gone down because it would have been used to set them up.
There’s an old Mafia saying that revenge is best served cold. It’s even better if it is done by duped prosecutors. But it is best if it is made up of whole cloth. In other words, getting innocent guys jammed in by prosecutors is the best revenge of all. It’s easier believing that than anything that comes out of the mouths of career murderers.
NC:
I must repeat for emphasis: Yours is a brilliant analysis, which aptly invokes Scripture.
NC: PERFECT SUMMATION OF BOTH THE WHOLE FOUL LOT OF “UNCLEAN SPIRITS” (Media, Academia, Feds, Mafiosa) AND THE WHOLE SORDID STATE OF AFFAIRS WHICH HAS LETHALLY INFECTED THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IN BOSTON (and its upper echelons, in D.C.)
Your assessment is 100% correct. Connolly and Rico were framed. Your blog, Kerr’s book on Rico and Bill’s on Connolly demonstrate that. The same thing was done to Naimovich. The top State cop investigating OC. He put Martorano in jail then was charged by gullible Feds using the testimony of criminals. Fortunately thanks to you and Lowell he was acquitted. The pernicious combination of a venal press, the Mafia, ambitious prosecutors and incompetent judges led to this injustice. What honest judge in America would let a Mafia hit man testify against a cop he never met? Isn’t a basic threshold of credibility needed? Connolly’s judges failed miserably. 2. Certain unclean spirits have been infesting the Boston media over the last few decades. Dershowitz, Mueller’s friend, was defaming all the Police in the region. He wrote a piece in the Globe called Testilying. He claimed the cops were taught to lie at the Police Academy. He had no evidence for his smear. A typical New York creep. Part of the cabal that framed Connolly. 3. Another unclean spirit is Carr. He is in his thirties when he arrives in Boston from his home in Florida. All he knows about OC is what Pat Nee and Gucci Martorano tell him. He makes money trafficking in their bogus stories so his nonsense goes unquestioned. Carr never met Barret, Connors, O’Sullivan, O’Toole, Verainis, Manville or Halloran. He has scant knowledge of what went on yet proclaims an expertise.Remember when Flemmi and Whitey are first asked about Connolly after their arrests they say he is honest. They alter their stories when they think it’s to their advantage.
Matt, excellent analysis.
Yes, I believe prosecutors were duped and more. They were overly zealous in search of bigger game . . . Billy Bulger . . . and the prosecutors were beguiled and egged on by Dershowitz, Carr, the Boston Globe, etc, and others who hated the Conservative Pro-Life Politician from South Boston.
Connolly and Rico were famed by Prosecutors, Sterns, Wyshak, Durham, killers Martorano, fleemi, Weeks, and a lying perjuring corrupt attempted murderer Morris who just happened to be Johnn Connolly’s boss at the FBI.
So, I don’t want the FBI taken down. I want Sterns, Wyshak and Durham put in prison for violating the constitution, for abuse of power, for putting on known perjurers whose stories changed from year to year, for pre-selecting and coaxing “stories” they wanted told to juries and generally for being corrupt prosecutors. And it is not just the Connolly and Rico cases either.
So, for now, without getting into issues like the Boston Marathon Bombing and how come with Facial Recognition Technology the DOJ did not immediatley I.D. the Tsaernev Terrorists, I’ll say this:
Your column today is SPOT ON! RIGHT ON THE MONEY! YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD.
Thumbs up.
Note that this is not a blanket endorsement of the FBI or the actions of its higher officials in criminal attempts undercut the the election and administration of Donald Trump.