I’ve been dragged away from blogging by other duties but still have been watching things as they progress especially with respect to Ukraine and Whitey. I read the reports of Whitey sending letters to someone saying he knew Freddy Weichel didn’t do the murder he is accused of doing but his code of honor prevents him from telling us who did it. Apparently Weichel’s lawyers are using Whitey’s letters seeking a motion for a new trial but I have to wonder why. Is there anyone in creation who would believe anything Whitey said?
Is there anyone more untrustworthy than a person convicted of being involved in more than ten murders? Is there anyone more trustworthy than one who says he has immunity to commit crime but flees when he hears he is charged with a crime and hides out for 16 years and then says the guy who gave him immunity is dead? Is there anyone that believes Stevie Flemmi was an informant and Whitey Bulger wasn’t when it was Whitey who did all the interactions with the FBI? Did the bugging of the Mafia induction ceremony happen without the help of Stevie who worked with Whitey to provide the FBI the information to do this?
The problem as I’ve often noted is that Whitey has come up with his own definition of what an informant is – in his mind if he is passing on Stevie’s information he isn’t an informant but a facilitator. There’s a couple of things that nail Whitey pretty good: Connolly wrote informant reports saying Whitey complained that the Norfolk DA had a vendetta against him. Did Connolly make that up, if not, how did he know? Norfolk had no dealings with the FBI but it was chasing after Whitey’s gang so if Whitey had to have passed that information to him.
Even more conclusive is that Whitey ratted out John Connolly. I’m not saying what Whitey said about Connolly is true — rats lie to save their butts all the time — but he gave information through his attorney that he paid Connolly hundreds of thousands of dollars for information. That my friend is Whitey’s code of honor, to rat on a guy who protected him from prosecution for a couple of decades.
You see that was Whitey’s dilemma. He’d been a rat for twenty years. He murdered people because he said they were going to rat him out. How do you justify murdering rats when you are one yourself? You pretend to yourself that you’re not one.
Take Al Sharpton, He wore a wire against people he knew after the FBI caught him in a drug sting. Al Sharpton said he wasn’t an informant even though he’s working with and for the FBI. He wore a wire against others to save his butt.
And no need to mention the Martorano defense for being a rat as “you can’t rat on a rat.” I think Kevin Weeks also thought that but Kevin had no doubt about others with his statement to the effect he was caught between a pair of them, Whitey and Stevie. Then you have the MacKenzie defense is that he was not ratting on his friends but only on drug dealers who he worked with until it became time to save himself.
I could go on but you get the idea. No rat ever thinks himself (usually they are males) as a rat. Others are rats but not him but when you ask the others they also tell you they are not rats. So I guess if we are to believe Whitey when he says he is not a rat then we have to believe there are no rats.
I constantly spent my half an hour to read this web site’s posts
all the time along with a cup of coffee.
I visited several sites but the audio feature for audio songs current att this web page is in fact excellent.
* # ” bog trotting paddies ” as Henry David Thoreau …. etc. … WELL PLAYED HENRY !!! 🙂
pat2e,
This is a funny. If you are playing on the word ” Squib” , rather than misspelling ” Squabble ” then you are clever as well as funny.
I like your remark because of the unconscious way you have underscored what is a critical truth ; truth for me at least : The ” Name” of the game seems long since to have been … Make the Irish … South Boston … Senate President William Bulger and any other chance ” bog trotting paddie ” as Henry David Thoreau would and did say …. look morally, intellectually, and socially inferior to the traditional wasp ascendancy in Boston.
Regardless of his other sins which we are sure are numerous, James Bulger, by every rational historical judgment of his lifelong interactions with women, was not a psychopathic ” South Boston Strangler .” Any Irish American who is not sensitive to the cultural baggage he is made to carry, by those morally no better, and arguably much worse, in regards to this sensational smear is either a dimwit or another spectator with no real skin in ” The Game !!! ” 🙂
just as whitey would want…people squibelling over his name… well played james!!!
Matt,
You got me wrong there. I don’t waste much time looking for the good in anyone. I know all people suck. Maybe that’s why I’m more reluctant than most to drink the Wyshak KoolAid. I don’t buy the Wyshak Team’s theory, “This could only happen in one place in this country, South Boston. Whitey was the worst criminal ever and all crimes in Boston for a generation can be traced back to him…the worst of the worst. John Connolly was a rogue agent, acting lawlessly all on his own for 25 years and nobody in federal law enforcement knew anything.”
You may recall that Judge Wolfe, despite getting other things wrong, emphasized these very facts. He specifically found that Wyshak’s theory was false and that the DOJ was doing the same thing throughout the entire U.S. He did it on the record and ordered that his findings be put on the website of the Court.
I’m critical of anything that Wyshak’s team spun through their captive mass media. The very fact that the DOJ used the media so heavily in this case is substantial evidence that the DOJ was focused on damage control more than truth or reform.
“And none of this could have happened anywhere else but Boston, the most Irish city in the country.” At least according to the DOJ’s spokesperson, Kevin Cullen.
I’m critical of people who can only say over and over that “Whitey was soooo bad”. That’s never even been the issue for me. Whitey was never very relevant for anyone outside of The Life. He’s not relevant to anyone now. So why is he still the DOJ’s boogeyman? Everyone who is chanting “sooo bad” is missing the real evil here, our government. All of the chanters have KoolAid stained mouths.
I prefer to focus on the real boogeymen. They’ve pulled off a stunning PR coup with the aid of the media. They’re more relevant than Whitey ever was, and you don’t have to be in The Life to be taken out by them. It could just be you own a little hotel that they want.
P
Matt, John Connolly’s appeal (motion for en banc review) is four years old. The appeal is not based on anything Whitey Bulger did or said. It is based on the simple fact that he was convicted in Florida on a count (murder by gun) for which the statute of limitations had run and for which it was impossible for him to commit. Under Florida law, to be convicted of murder by gun you actually had to have the murder weapon in your hand at the time of the murder. John Connolly was in Martha’s Vineyard when John Callahan was killed by Martorano in Florida. What happened to John in Florida was a grave travesty of justice. Four years for the Florida Appeals Court to decide straightforward issues of law: Did the SOL run? Can you convict someone of murder by gun who was 1500 miles away at the time of the murder?
Matt,
Re: Vanessa’s. … Yes, Carney and Brennan could not have phrased it more succinctly in his defense than you just phrased it in your accusation : ” It’s PUT ON (my caps) Whitey because it’s more proof of his informing. ” … I agree completely !!! … Vinnie Ferrara is emerging as the putative head of the Boston Faction , and this is all happening in a great vacuum ??? … Connolly … who picked Frank … thanx a lot Stevie you goddamn rat …. Salemme Sr. out of eight million people in Manhattan needs info to be funneled through Whitey from his old pal Flemmi ??? …. Not likely …. but like so much that is accepted uncritically in this case, and has become literally a revealed religion, we pause only to genuflect
. Heaven forfend that we intelligently reflect on these articles of faith. That is just not nearly as simple as putting it all on ” The Devil Whitey !!! ” .,. Now, can I get me an Ahem instead of an Amen there Congregants ??? 🙂
Matt,
They were his confederates, and he chose poorly. He realizes that now. Certain people you are wise to keep and maintain your distance from. When, in lawyerly cadence, you say things like ” Whitey never denied in cross examination that he strangled Deborah Hussey ” you make unprecedented statements of what masquerades as fact, but is without anything but the imaginative ” What If ” substance you dismiss so glibly. Context is critical is it not. What we simple laymen might have considered context for your Kevin Cullen post wherein you stated Cullen said Jack O’Brien was running a rigged shop would have been this : To read the actual Cullen column and discover that statements you attributed quite scathingly to Cullen were actually just his describing in his column of Fred Wushak’s charges and Case he was prosecuting.
So, that type of laying out of ” facts” is, God Love You Matt, as I certainly like and respect you, as disingenuous as your implied claim that somehow a defendant’s lawyers refusing to address an absurd and self-serving claim of collusion in a woman’s murder made by a witness who is a confirmed pedophile, necrophiliac mutilator and murderer of everything less sacred than Mama Flemmi’s home cooking, somehow amounts to …. ” He never denied on cross examination that he strangled Deborah Hussey !!! ” You’re serious Matt ??? … I respect your intelligence, and acknowledge your wily legal mind, too much, to accept that you seriously expected a salute when you ran that pennant up on the yardarm. Flying under False Colors we call it there Captain You Gotta Be Kidding Me! !!! … Time for a Parley.
Yes Matt, WHAT IF !!! … Jimmy Bulger had actually taken the stand and told his story. I imagine he would have raked Fred Wyshak and Brian Kelly with many a broadside on any Cross and that his oaken hull would have proved seasoned to their verbal fusillades and cannoneering . And .. Captain B would have sunk them !!! … Dead men tell no tales, but they knew that only he knew the truth worth telling. He was denied the opportunity. Don’t equivocate now about how he could have taken the stand in a trial that you have written on many days was not at all … Cricket … as the Brits say. It was all about Crickets though … He is eighty four years old … Render unto Caeser that which is Caesars … no more and no less … He is not a killer of women. Your evidence that he is bases itself upon, as you lawyers say, finds it’s precedent in, the testimonies of former confederates who had every possible reason and government inducement to lie, embellish, embroider and make a garishly painted legal whore of the ” truth !” …. Embrace your meretricious tricksters … Weeks and Flemmi… Counselor ; For they are really indeed, the Government’s best friends in making the sordid case to trump all vile, sordid exercises in professional deceit and cynicism : The dirty deal to try to connect Jimmy Bulger with an act against a woman that violated the core tenets of his … Piratical… but paradoxically very Noble… Nature !!!
Matt ,
Why buy bridges when they are so easily built in the mind ??? … The Seabees could not put together more readily an all purpose pontoon bridge to connect Flemmi’s sordid murder sites of the two women: his abundant personal motivation, his history encrusted with Jack The Ripperesque bloody toilings in general, their post-mortem mutilation by him, and the disinterring and re-interrment of one, with the Tenean Beach/ Florian Hall burial grounds.
At one of the pre-capture civil trials Kevin Weeks told the following anecdote under oath. It is faithfully retold, and why not really as it’s a sworn to part of the Canon, by the inimitable P.T. Barnum of the Jimmy Bulger Wild East Show, Howie Carr, at that ebullient Impressario’s caravan NIGHT OF CRIME Shows.
In Weeks’ version of a particular burial ‘neath the bridge at Neponset it is Halloween Eve, and the ” evening was dark with something more than night ” as Raymond Chandler once wrote. Raptly we listen as the division of labor in this burial detail is offered by Kevin Weeks. Astonishingly, the great post-woman strangling catnapping arch fiend James Bulger is in the hole with Flemmi digging industriously in the Neponset fog !!! … This is the same guy whom we were told at his recent trial liked to take a snooze after killing a woman, leaving his henchmen to do the burying. As Flemmi testified when asked about his subordination to these grisly tasks by the catnapping arch fiend and his passive acquiescence he said, ” I don’t know, he just liked things that way I guess .”
Yet here we are. It is Halloween night. P.T. ” Carr” Barnum gives the tails of his frocked waistcoat an impatient shake as he waits in Future’s wings to open the Big Top in his contemporary hybrid of Cody’s Wild West Show and the Bulger Circus aka HOWIE’S NIGHT OF CRIME … And … thusly…. Weeks now tells us that James Bulger handed him a machine gun and keep a weather eye peeled there matey, or some such similar imaginative Kevin nonsense. Are you swallowing all this now ??? …. Suddenly, an inebriated Halloween’r rolls up nearby and gets out of his car for a leisurely piss…. The ghoulish hole diggers, Whitey and Stevie, dive deeper into the belly of the Underworld while the Machine Gun Kevin of the Bulger Gang feverishly caresses the steel trigger …. Long, absurd, apocryphal James Bulger one size murder fits all lurid ,and totally incredible Weeksie story short, the unwitting pisser zips up and on outta there. At this point , Kevin assures us, Whitey springs up and angrily asks …. ” Why the hell didn’t you shoot him??? … There was plenty of room in that hole !!! ”
So, Jimmy’s diggin” !!!!!!!!! STEP RIGHT UP FOLKS WE GOT THAT SHOVEL RIGHT THERE IN HIS HANDS !!!!!!!!! … On Halloween no less … RIGHT THIS WAY FOLKS, MORE GHOULS AND GOBLINS THAN YOU CAN SHAKE OFF A STICK AT !!!!!!!!! … And the legendarily cautious and cunning James Bulger is incensed that furtive activity in a business/ residential area is not brought to anyone’s attention by an oafish burst of machine gun fire ???
Kevin Weeks is not an oaf. He is a good, superlative really, storyteller. And he knew where the bodies were buried. His Odyssey with James Bulger covered much ground. I do not consider people like Tommy King who were sitting bulletproof vest clad in the front seats of cars to murder another, when they themselves were murdered, as ” Victims !!! ” … John Martorano says he killed Tommy King. James Bulger is James Bulger is James Bulger !!! … He is not Steven Flemmi. Period. Deborah Davis and Deborah Hussey were in all senses, in the former case from adolescence, and in the latter from childhood on, the monstrously warped and TEI Program embedded since the mid-sixties Steven ” THE RIFLEMAN ” Flemmi’s Victims. As any member of the Public that wants the entire truth, rather than tailored and outlandish constructions of events that suit different personal and official agendas, I merely say that when it comes to chronicling what James Joseph Bulger ACTUALLY did or did not do, just do not keep pissing down our backs and telling us that it is raining out !!! 🙂
John:
Play all the what ifs you want but Whitey’s best friends were Stevie Flemmi and Kevin Weeks.
* VINNIE FERRARA ON SAGANSKY … NOT FEDERICO … RIGHT CHURCH, WRONG PEW … THAT WOULD BE … THE WOMAN WHO DID MRS.FERRARA’S HAIR … THEREFORE … AND THE PRINCIPLE THE SAME THOUGH THE PRINCIPAL DIFFERENT 🙂 … THE FERRARA/FEDERICO VINNIES DUEL INTO THE DUSK !!!
Matt,
Vanessa’s ??? … The pastry place in the Pru right … And Vinnie Federico and Bobby Carrozza were making their move trying to shake down Doc Sagansky right ??? And the wily dentist from Chelsea … Knowing that those two were in way over their heads at that point … Considering the protection he had … Said something to them to the effect of … have you two guys ever heard of something named the Massachusetts state lottery ??? 🙂 …. there were probably 10 to 20 FBI agents, a dozen Haymarket vendors, two bartenders at the old European restaurant, and the woman who did Mrs. Federico’s hair … who knew about that conversation !!! … that was a Stevie Flemmi and the Troubadours loop, not a James Bulger loop !!! … however why not fit that on the procrustean bed that is the James Bulger Prosecution … I mean really what crime can’t he be saddled with ?!? 🙂
From All accounts of his modus operandi in the Underworld he was a gun nut. If indeed he committed murder … which in your own words … is attested to by ” the real rats testifying against him ” … and thus still subject to doubt … reasonable doubt …then his weapon of choice was a gun. He was not a hands on throttle the neck type killer. By all accounts .. especially yours … he had a serious and lifelong reverence for women. See Your previous extensive blog entries , And assertions that he took the Leavenworth stretch on the early days bank jobs … to protect the South Boston girlfriend Jackie … who was Bonnie to his Clyde on that crime spree . Again facts are stubborn things !!! … you really took Lehr and O’Neill and The Globe to the woidshed on what you maintain was their wilful distortion of fact in that episode! !!! …. What is truly distorted however… to me anyway …. pardon my humble opinion … is the ludicrous notion that Jimmy Bulger would strangle a woman. If You are content to accept the testimony of the ” Real Rats ” regarding this complete and utter bullshit, then I can only shake my head … and tell you that Stevie Flemmi has a bridge that he wants to sell you !!! 🙂
John:
How did all those people know about that conversation at Vanessa’s. It was through the information Stevie Flemmi gave to Whitey who passed it along to Connolly who used it to get a wire on Vanessa’s and it was during the wire that the conversation was overheard.It’s put on Whitey because it is more proof of his informing. Your not seriously suggesting Stevie was an informant and Whitey wasn’t?
True Whitey was a gun nut. He was also a murderer. Two women were killed in South Boston on his territory. WE know they were murdered by Stevie Flemmi. Are you suggesting Whitey wasn’t involved? They just happened to be buried in the place where Whitey buried the other people he murdered. Keep in mind Whitey never even contested the fact he killed the Hussey girl through cross-examination.
I’ve never suggested Whitey had a life long seriour reverence for women. He was know for his prowess with women, two or three steady girlfriends and some other women on the side. That hardly shows reverence, its more akin to thinking of them as dupes. No question he confessed to the robberies to save his girlfriend but he was also caught cold and had no real defense. All that shows is Whitey’s attitude toward women he was in a steady relationship with was to protect them but for those who threathened him he showed disdain. Didn’t he exhibit a great callousness to one woman looking for her husband; didn’t he make some sadistic call to another about Christmas. Yes, like the Barker boys, he was good to his Mom and some women but the rest he used.
I believe rats when their stories are corroborated. The bodies of Deborah Davis and Deborah Hussey being found where they rats said they would be is compelling corroboration. The bodies of others Whitey murdered, Pat King and Pauli McGonagle being buried nearby where they are found. Yes, I believe Weeks when he tells how Whitey did Deborah in and buried her in the cellar the same way I believe he tried to strangle McIntyre before finally shooting him. If bridges ae being sold, I suggest you are the prime candidate for buying one.
Matt,
Let’s forgo the emotionalism and persnicketiness of … Yes, McDonald is fond of Whitey And thinks he is some sort of stand up guy … First of all I do not like “Wiseguy” talk like that. The indiscriminate and careless bandying back and forth of expressions like … stand up guy … and … rat … mask realities too complex to be addressed in any meaningful way by this bazooka gum chewing jargony approach. Let’s discuss facts and leave the jargon to the crime potboilers. … Secondly, referring to me as … McDonald … is disrespectful … as I have never … with some imputation of derision in the address … referred to you as … Connolly … rather than, Matt !!! And if you thought my use of ” Seabiscuit” implied derision, then you are not showing your usual good horse sense …. Now … to facts … their rational and unemotional arraying … and a debate uncolored by too easily thrown around epithets like … rat …. which may steer us back on a Sunlit course !!!
Anyone who Googles … for lack of better means to access the archive … Fbi rotor + The Trial of Whitey Bulger will pull up : FRIDAY MORNING June 28,2013 … Everything Filed by Connolly in his 209 Was fabricated . At one point they were in a rotor Which was a file system …
When you click on that link It brings you to your response to commenter Pat2E in COMMENTS … And I quote … ” you’re right whitey is making a good case showing he is not an informant .Much Better than I thought he could. Hope to have my thoughts together by Monday to post what the defense is. YOU’RE ALSO RIGHT, THE REAL RATS ARE TESTIFYING AGAINST HIM ”
Matt, Upper Case letters in this last sentence are mine ; Those words are however all yours. As John Adams famously said when defending the British soldiers of the Boston Massacre : Facts are stubborn things.
John:
The use of McDonald was not an attempt at derision, I was answering Louie, not you, who referred to you as Mr. McDonald – had he used John I would have said John. It does seem to me you have a fondness of Whitey and that you thing he is a stand up guy; I don’t consider those expressions as being “Wiseguy” talk. The use of the term “rat” is appropriate in this discussion especially since Whitey and his buddies have all run from the term which rightly, I suggests, implies all that they are. As for Seabiscuit whatever you said about that really did not register with me so I thought nothing of it one way or the other.
You suggested that I:”vacillate on whether or not the FBI officially carried [Whitey] on the Great Rolodex, or, post facto created the FBI Informant Identity for him. See your previous opinings ; you have clearly stated a belief in the latter.” I challenged you to show this.
You point to a response I made to a comment by PAT2E wherein I said: “You’re right that Whitey is making a good case showing he’s not an informant. Much better than I thought he could do. Hope to have my thoughts together on it by Monday to post what the defense strategy is. You’re also right the real rats are testifying against him.”
To keep it in context PAT2E wrote: “the more that comes out i think connelly made up 209′s to explan why he was with whitey so much, to justify his numerous homes etc he prob wasnt an informant at all then that makes the executioner and 2weeks the biggest rat w/ the paratrooper flemmi in my humble opinion.”
Nowhere in my response do I suggest that I believed Whitey was not an informant as you indicated. I commented on Attorney Brennan’s cross-examination which I thought he did an excellent job whereby he could use it to assert that position. I didn’t suggest that I would buy into it.
It has been clear to me in innumerable ways that Whitey has been an informant. That I suggested in response to PAT2E’s assertion that Flemmi was the biggest rat by suggesting the real informants are testifying against him, did not indicate Whitey was not an informant.
I’ve often noted Flemmi was much more of an informant than Whitey, He’d gone back to the days of Rico and was passed on through Condon to Connolly. I assume you have no doubt he was an informant, after all he testified that he was one. He also said he gave information to Connolly through Whitey. Whitey was his partner and bosom buddy. Whitey was the one who met with Connolly almost 95% of the time.I guess if you believe Whitey was not a rat then you have to believe that he was oblivious of Flemmi’s activities with Connolly.
Facts are stubborn.
Matt,
It’s true that your office hounded Whitey’s bookies.
It’s true that Whitey hated Delahunt/your office.
It’s true that John Connolly wrote a report memorializing Whitey’s complaints about your office.
It’s likely true that Whitey made that complaint directly (or indirectly) to John Connolly.
Accepting all the above as true, does it really amount to bedrock evidence that Whitey was an informant?
What seems lacking is the “informing” component. It doesn’t appear that anyone could have been prosecuted from this complaining. Perhaps it depends on the definition of “informing”. It just doesn’t seem like complaining about law enforcement’s legitimate activity is inculpating or ‘informable’ information. Maybe there’s more facts that bridge this leap.
As for your second factual pillar supporting the argument that Whitey was an informant, there’s a similar leap. Your statement that Whitey said he paid John Connolly money is quite true. That was wrong of Whitey. There’s no denying that. But does it prove he was an informant for 25 yrs? Or does it prove that he was an informant in 2012 when he said that about John? Does it prove both? Or does it prove neither?
In 2011, Whitey did tell law enforcement that John Connolly was innocent of everything. Then in 2012, Whitey said John Connolly took money, but John had nothing to do with the Callahan murder. What changed during that year? The US Attorney published a jailhouse recording of Whitey saying words to the effect, ‘they gave me tons of reports. I got reports all over the place. I was never an informant. I don’t know what this is!’
Later, Whitey said that at the time he was handed his FBI informant file in discovery, it was ‘the biggest deception anyone ever played on him in his life’.
From these public statements, and assuming they are true, what changed after Whitey’s arrest in 2011 was that he believed John Connolly had deceived and hurt him. That’s no justification for hurting John by saying John “took”. It is somewhat explanatory of Whiteys change of heart towards John. Still it was not a defensible act.
Does that make Whitey an informant? Some would say yes and some no. Whitey didn’t give the information to law enforcement, it was intercepted. The information could not have been used to get John prosecuted. The statue had blown decades in the past. So why say it? Perhaps it was part of the ‘immunity defense’, helpful to Whitey and harmless to all except the reputation of John Connolly, the man who made the “Whitey informant file”.
In any event, it was wrong of whitey to say it, but it’s quite a leap to say it proves he was an informant, at any time. In fact, it could just as well support the argument that he wasn’t an informant, ever.
Patty
Patty:
An informant is one who give information to a law enforcement officer in order to gain a benefit. Whitey giving information to Connolly hoping to have him work against the Norfolk DAs office is something an informant would do. And, as you know, it worked well since some in the Boston FBI office accused the Norfolk DAs office of leaking information to the Mafia and ended up in the indictment of John Naimovich who Whitey and Stevie knew was not their informant but by taking him out they were able to continue their business unmolested. Yes, with respect to Norfolk Whitey was an informant since Naimovich was prosecuted if you use that as a standard which I don’t.
Whitey by throwing John Connolly under the bus with his statements about giving him money pretty much doomed Connolly to dying in a Florida prison. Whitey was an informant since the mid-Seventies and also in 2012 when he turned on Connolly. It doesn’t make a difference whether Connolly could be prosecuted on it; it will be used against him anytime he tries to make a pitch for his freedom.
Whitey betrayed Connolly in doing what he did. All along Whitey was giving him information (some suggest that he only passed on information from Stevie and that exonerates him which I don’t buy) as shown by the Vanessa and induction ceremony info that Connolly used to take down the Mafia. How did Connolly get that information if not through Whitey.
Whitey did turn on Connolly – very viciously which makes his statements against him very suspect – because he figured that he was giving Connolly the information and Connolly had not opened an informant file on him. But Whitey had to know he was an informant – didn’t Fitzpatrick call him an informant to his face which he denied; didn’t he meet with Sarhatt to justify his continuation on as an informant ; he also met with someone else whose name I don’t recall – Whitey’s problem was he was always an informant, he was protected by Connolly continually in exchange for his information, but he thought nothing was put down in writing.
Patty:
You keep trying to find something good in Whitey. There was no good in him. He was a criminal all his life. The only good in his life was his brother Billy. They are like mirror opposites. Where Billy represents everything good; Whitey represents everything bad. It was Billy’s goodness, his inability to understand Whitey’s evil, that caused him to be hurt by Whitey something that Whitey could have prevented.
* Mr Calluci … sorry for misnomer ” Callucio ” mid-way …. I know the Callucio family quite well. I believe this will explain it 🙂
Mr. Calluci
I appreciate the rational exposition of fact and argument. Pointing out that these have not been the mainstay of the Bulger Mythography : the politically motivated slandering of William Bulger, and the bizarre trying of facts in James Bulger’s case, is news to … whom ??? … Not to Matt certainly, who has consistently used the metaphor of ” Circus ” to describe the latter.
Again, Words are powerful. I respect your cogently worded appeal, but reject your characterization of my questions to Matt as ” railing ” against his interpretation of events. He is not thinskinned. I respect his acumen and opinions. And I offer this anecdote.
About ten years ago I appeared before three August Eminences in State Supreme Court on a real estate case I had doggedly appealed up from the Lower Court. …. Well, Mr.McDonald … from your remarks I clearly infer you feel you were treated fairly as regards the evidence by Judge —– in the matter, why then did you appeal it ??? … Your Honor, I was treated very fairly by Judge —— as regards the evidence. It is simply that we reached very different conclusions about the case in respect to that evidence .
This was my response then, and my response now to differing ” Interpretations ” of events. This … Mr Callucio …. is what makes horse races. I am content, as it seems is James Bulger, to acknowledge that The Trial Of Whitey Bulger, encapsulated a bloody, painful, and emotionally torturous for many, epoch in Boston’s social and OC/FBI history, swept now, untidily, into history’s dustbin. We know the mythography as written in : THE BROTHERS BULGER, BRUTAL, BLACK MASS, WHITEY, RIFLEMAN , RATMAN, RAT BASTARDS and doubt not that RAT-A-TAT-TAT is probably being written as I write this. Here is the irony Louie … We ALL know or suspect the real Truth. And WE can’t handle the Truth !!!
Well Louie, I do what I can. I hope this explains my challenges as opposed to, railleries, to Matt to intellectually defend a position he takes , especially when inconsistencies are respectfully pointed out to him. Please forgive the bantering tone of my address to Matt, as it is mete to a spirit of mutual respect and fellowship we share. And please do not confuse this tone with ” railing.” …. Matt is shrewd, experienced , and I value his insights. I would get a real kick out of his posting the Appeal and then legally analyzing … in an austerely judicial manner … its arguments !!!
It depends on what the definition of is is as Clinton said. If the source of the info was Flemmi and WB just past it along is he really an informant? Why did the Quincy Police have WB as the top gangster ( he only lived there a short time) whereas Gucci was a life long resident of Norfolk County and killed twice as many people. Shouldn’t he be the top? 2. Interesting to note that Flemmi said under oath in 1997 Connolly was honest. The media dismissed his assertion. When WB was initially caught he said Connolly was honest. The media said you can’t credit a gangster. But when they alter their stories and blame Connolly they are somehow credible? Nothing a gangster says is believable. Whatever they say is self motivated and unrelated to the truth. That is why all allegations against Rico and Connolly are obviously false. The info was stale ( decades old)and not susceptible to corroboration or refutation. Only a corrupt prosecutor and thoroughly dishonest press would try to validate it. 2. Compare what the charges against Rico and Connolly were and their source( no credible evidence whatsoever) to the rape allegations against the FSU QB. The alleged victim in Fla. is a college student ( not a criminal like Chrystal Magnum). She makes an immediate report, a fresh complaint. She goes to the hospital. She has injuries. A dna test proves the act took place and who was responsible. Yet the Police do a cursory investigation with no follow up. Were they adopting the FBI tactic in the Tsarnaev case. Ignore the obvious. Hide the truth and deceive the public. Are the Florida cops blaming the Russians too? 3. With the Todashev whitewash the FBI is now 151 for 151 in their shootings. A perfect score. They made a movie The Perfect Storm. Maybe they can make a movie The Perfect Score. 4. Is WB going to start a nationwide movement to copy fellow informant Shapton’s? He could call his the National Inaction League. Base it on Buddhist and Quaker philosophies.
1. If Whitey is passing on Stevie’s information he is an informant. After all that’s what informants do, pass on information they get from other people to the cops. Whitey lived in the Quincy condos for ten or so years, hardly a short time. Gucci (Murderan) was living in Florida during the time the Quincy police were actively looking for Whitey. They might vacation in Florida but they don’t have jurisdiction there.
2. Flemmi also said under oath that Naimovich was the guy who gave him information from the State Police. The media (well many in it) will use whatever source it can find to justify a story. Just like with Connolly – they say he is corrupt and not believable when he says he never took a penny but on the other hand they say he is believable when he tells of Whitey mysteriously appearing in his car and joining in the fight against the Mafia. I agree with you that nothing a gangster says is believable unless independently corroborated by two popes. The information against Rico is so absurd that it falls upon its face on its own. Connolly did some stupid things; most of what he did that was deemed corrupt was done because the FBI told him to do it but when it came down to backing him up, as it should, all the agents ran for the woods.
3. Connolly’s problem was he thought he had some stand up people behind him who would tell the world that his job in handling top echelon informants was to do exactly what he did which was to protect them; that was the quid pro quo approved from J..Edgar down. The FBI is the one to blame more than anyone for Connolly’s plight. As for the Florida State quarterback, he had friends in high places who backed him up. The proof doesn’t matter it whether you have the right backing. All I want the FBI to tell me is how many people did the Russians tip them off about in the Boston area during the three years prior to the Marathon Terrorist Attack. I’d guess it was no more than 5; so tell me how they closed the case. We’ll find out more about that in Joker’s trial – the FBI may be putting pressure on the DOJ to make a deal with Joker – he’ll do 18 months – like Murderman – 6 months a murder – if he tells the grand jury how Billy Bulger taught him to make the pressure cooker bombs.
4. The FBI’s 151 for 151 bespeaks of the good training the agents have received – whatever happened to the FBI cheating scandal at Quantico – or if not the good training it is the good backing of people in high places – see # 3 above. The Perfect Score can play as a double feature with The Man With Immunity.
5. I hear MSNBC is in serious negotiations with Whitey to do a half hour of the Al Sharpton show which will be renamed the Rat Hour. Whitey and Al are going to start the National Extortion League and base it on the Philosophy of Tawana Brawley. .
Mr. McDonald,,
By the tenor of your comments, you know the “real” story about James Bulger, his life of crime, and his prosecution. Rather than rail against Matt’s interpretation of people and events, it would be very helpful and enlightening if YOU would lay out the facts as you know them. Looking forward to the rest of the story.
Louie:
Yes McDonald is fond of Whitey and finds that he’s some sort of stand up guy. I’m waiting to hear his response.
* ” Is there anyone more untrustworthy than someone being convicted of ten murders? ” … YES !!! : Steve Flemmi, Johnny Martorano ( though Johnny has his own curious merits compared to the rest) , John Morris, Kevin Weeks, Joey Tower, Paul Moore, and a host of other cocaine dreamers and venal schemers. Bought and paid for …. Asked and Answered … Your very question says more about The Trial Of Whitey Bulger than any answer you profess to seek. Words have power. You can skywrite airy fables as so many have done about James Bulger or you can rationally present facts, hear argument, weigh credibility of accounts and those giving them, or not. If you choose the former you are just another Fleet Street hustler, and are not condemned for your … fabricating … with the best of them. If you opt for the Truth , however, you must examine the Truth, not go merrily whistling by it !!! 🙂
John:
Flemmi and Martorano, like Whitey, committed more than ten murders and are equally untrustworthy. The others haven’t but I find those involved in murder do deserve the most opprobrium and stand at the bottom of the trust cateory. Whitey was a rat whether you want to accept it or not. I’m not sure how you find any redeeming qualities in a man who live a life of crime and brutally killed women and men. Whitey is at the bottom of the barrell and he swam there with his friend Stevie.
* Noble Cause Corruption … More oats in the nosebag there Seabiscuit … What part did it play in all so glibly summed up by you in this last installment … IT’S POST TIME !!! 🙂
* The ” Rotor ” … which I referred to above as the Great Rolodex … just came back to memory. I recollect also your sceptical view of its integrity, as well as your ridiculing of the IG Agent’s ” babysitting ” of it throughout the Trial. What has changed since then ???
… And so on and on and on Ad Stuporem with the ” Whitey is a rat trope ” , which is really tripe. It is of interest that you vacillate on whether or not the FBI officially carried him on the Great Rolodex, or, post facto created the FBI Informant Identity for him. See your previous opinings ; you have clearly stated a belief in the latter. So, the only guy who never got on the stand and testified against anyone is ” The Rat ??? ” … This is an extremely convenient fiction isn’t it ! … It sells books … conceals dirty dealings on official levels, however noble the original intentions of the OC Agents, and lulls us all back to our sleepwalking conformity in … The Rat Race !!! … Chew, don’t gnaw now, but, Chew, on that, Seabiscuit … And see if you can produce something more introspectively illuminating for the rational thinker regarding Jimmy Bulger than the usual government mill propaganda and disinformation . Do it for John Naimovitch .
John:
I’ve never vacillated on whether the FBI carried Whitey as in informant. There is no doubt that it did and it protected him during all the times it said it did. Your suggestion that I believed he was created after the fact is absolutely wrong. Here’s your chance to go back and show me a prior post where I said that.
If you have trouble believing Whitey is a rat then tell me how Connolly had the information on Vanessa’s if not from Whitey.