(This is being published each Sunday in serial form. For full view of past postings go here. }
Dates are important for understanding the true impact of what happened here. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Decisions are made with other factors in mind. In court we hear about something happening. We get a limited picture of what else played into bringing it about. Writers of books can conflate events or leave them vague or use wrong dates so that the story told to us is skewed a certain way to confuse or deceive the reader.
Foley wrote about the meeting he had with FBI Supervisor James Ring. He said he felt he was being accused as being the one responsible for leaking information to Vinny Ferrara. He told us how relieved he felt that he was able to shift the blame from himself onto John Naimovich. He said that meeting happened in October, 1986. It actually happened in October or November 1987, a year later.
He also wrote about the discussion that took place at that time noting: “Whoever was leaking the information we had about the LCN most likely wasn’t going straight to Ferrara with it. He was going through a middleman. Ring believed that this person was a small-time bookie named Franny McIntyre who paid tribute regularly to Ferrara.” The FBI did not know about McIntyre until the fall of 1987.
In April of 1987, 7 months before the Foley and Ring meeting, Sgt Bob Haley and John Naimovich of the state police’s SSU unit came to me. They asked if I’d be interested in doing a gaming wiretap. I agreed. Bob left Naimovich in charge of it to work with me.
The law is that a prosecutor must supervise the wiretaps. Other DAs let the police officers run them. Naimovich was so experience in this area that he was used to taking over and doing that. I took the law very seriously and kept very close supervision over them. This wasn’t exactly to Naimovich’s liking but he knew without me it couldn’t be done.
In the early days I would spend all my extra time at the plant where the wiretap was being operated to ensure things were done right. Being at the plant allowed me to begin writing the affidavits for the subsequent investigative steps and get familiar with the players who we were chasing. As time passed and my trial and administrative responsibilities grew, I couldn’t spend as much time as I’d like at a plant.
Doing this wiretap with the SSU and Naimovich made me comfortable. I skipped going to the plant knowing it would be operated in accordance with the law and the court order. I insisted though that Naimovich meet with me early each morning to go over things that happened the day before and to work on our strategy. He’d bring me copies of the tapes, the logs and surveillance reports.
We started off with a wiretap on a low-level bookie office in Plainville from May 19 to June 2, 1987; we jumped a little higher to another office in Mansfield from June 23 to July 7, 1987; from there we moved to a Walpole gaming office that was a little bigger which we intercepted from July 6 to July 30, 1987; on August 10 we moved onto another step on the ladder to a Sharon office that we stayed on until September 8, 1987.
I learned from the testimony of Jimmy Katz that we were playing around on the edges of the big time since we were on offices under the umbrella of Whitey and Stevie. Whatever we did to their offices would cost them money. If we took any legal action that required lawyers that would even cost more.
We then jumped squarely into the hornet’s nest. We were about to disclose our hand. We were going to start hitting their pocket-book. As you know the thing that hurts a gangster most, aside from prison, is to have to pay out money.
On September 22 to October 16, 1987, we moved over to a major office in Dedham. Just before or shortly after we got up on it, we conducted raids on several of the gaming locations on which we had developed probable cause from our previous taps. Our strategy was not to make arrests but to seize paraphernalia which showed evidence of gaming. We figured this would confuse the bookies. Rather than receiving a pair of cuffs they received a subpoena to the grand jury on October 8 and October 21, 1987.
Keep in mind, that the SSU was a separate unit that did not tell others on their job what they were doing. My office had a procedure where I, one secretary, Sheila, and perhaps one other ADA and the DA would know what we were doing. Neither the FBI nor the gangsters had any reach into our operations to find out what was going on.
Once we sprung into action, it seemed others did also. Eugene David Mattioli, a captain on the state police, in charge of its intelligence unit, had been working with the FBI’s C-3 unit since 1984. He was about to receive a new assignment. On October 18, 1987, he was put in charge of the SSU unit giving him access to its files and to the wiretaps I was working on. He said he first was informed he was going to take command about two-week prior to that. That was shortly after we had our raids.
He said the idea of him taking command came up about a month or six weeks prior to him taking over. Even assuming it was six weeks, that seems an awfully short time to make a decision to impact the way the SSU traditionally operated, especially in a bureaucracy. The SSU was the state police’s most aggressive unit and was in the middle of an involved wiretap that had been ongoing since May. What was the reason for this reorganization? What was the rush?
~Matt I read your article over several times. You are right on target.
Bob H
Bob:
Thanks it get better the more I have thought about it.
~ Dear Doubting Thomas, You’re interested in the Nite Lite Cafe. I’m almost finished with a book (“Gaga”: The Real Whitey Bulger/ Irish Mob Story) that twice mentions the Nite Lite Cafe. The below mention explains why Fabiano was killed:
“Fabiano called Wimpy up. ‘Tash. And DePriso are dead. Larry. And Phil did it.’ Wimpy called the cops. Almost got them pinched. Fabiano was a witness. He’s in the car. Sitting like this (holds invisible steering wheel). They carry out a body. Throw it in Tash’s Cadillac. In goes the other body. Larry jumps in the car. Phil jumps in his car. Follows him to Southie. Where they dump it. ‘B.’ And West Fourth Street.
While they’re doing that. Wimpy sent the cops. ‘Weeeee (spins raised finger).’ To pinch everyone. In the Nite Lite Cafe. But the only one there. Ralphie Chong cleaning up the blood.”
afraid- I am really ripping my hair out with the anticipation of your book. Wimpy Bennett and his brothers were some sneaky individuals. But back to your book, would you let me know when I will be able to purchase it. YOUR Brother’s story is really one of the major stories I demand to know the truth about. PLEASE keep in touch afraid and let me know how everything is progressing. BLESS YOU and your FAMILY
Afraid:
Nothing – nothing new on the Halloran murder as you may have known by now. Strange but no one wants to go near it. We may here something about it when Whitey testifies. I’m glad t see you’re getting to the end of the book. Anxious to read it.
~Matt- Since you have such a solid amount of information and facts to support the career lynching of Ivan, Would you consider writing or contribution to a book about it all?
Doubting:
I’ve been considering it for years. Never got around to it. That’s why I came up with the idea of doing something and posting it on Sunday. My wife insists I stay off the computer on Sunday during the day so I can do Naimovich’s piece during the week and schedule it for Sunday. Everytime I compose one of my posts on it I find more things that should have shouted out to all involved, if any of them were on the level, that this was a lynch party. Today I happened to read over my testimony at his trial. It was interesting going back and getting a feeling for what happened.But it reminded me of other things I have to add in without getting to verbose. It was good that I never did any writing on it before Foley came out with his book because the information he provided tied a lot of things in nicely. Had I written earlier he might not have been as candid.
~Matt- Have you ever taught a class or workshop on the particular’s of conducting a wiretap, All laws applied to a wiretap, the workings physically of the tap and etc.. I only ask because I am trying to get into the wiretapping field and you are the “SENSEI” of the wire. If you recall [which you shouldn’t your much to busy] in past posts I was trying to get my ears on the doghouse tapes and the Nite Lite café tapes. Take care Pal.
Doubting:
For a couple of years I taught classes to cops on search and seizure but with limted success. The best way I taught was to do it in small groups while we doing the stuff. The cops are like everyone else, some wanted to know why we were doing things and others just went along figuring that was the way to do it. A couple of guys really stood out as I think back although I may be unfair to mention then becase there were many. One was Paul Stone who was a Met cop and then a statie, the other was Billy Brooks out of Norwood. They were always questioning me about the reasons we were doing things and wanted to discuss the law, especially in the search and seizure area. Rick Zebrasky as state police lieutenant did a lot of work with me. He wasn’t so much interested in the law leaving that up to me but he was very good at the police end of the work and for years we made a good team. He was not reluctant to tell me when he thought I had strayed too far from my area into his. I looked upon wiretaps as an extention of search and seizure. There were three parts to it: the affidavit which the cop had to write; the application which I wrote; and the warrant (feds call it an order) that issued by the judge. Then there was the technical stuff of getting the informatin to hook up the lines and having the necessary equipment. Then it was having a plan as to how the plant would be run and insuring the monitoring officers knew what to listen to and what to minimize. I could go on but won’t. I was going to say it was quite simple but as I wrote I kept seeing there was a lot more to it than I remembered.
I do recall you asking about the Patriaca tapes – did you have anay sucess with them. What were the Nite Lite cafe tapes?
Matt- I was mistaken it was not nite lite café it was a wiretap convo about the murders of barboza’s men in the cafe my apologies.
Doubting:
No problem – I hadn’t heard of it and was just making sure I hadn’t missed it. Thanks.
~How far back in time do we have to go to find the first admixture of the poisonous brew of heartless hoodlums, weak dirty cops,shysters and a dishonorable judicial system?
The ladder of success seduces too many to do things that they ought not do, elections are often won by a name recognition factor, DAs seek publicity like a moth to the klieg lights, police departments often give promotions based on bumkissing,connections and not rocking the boat. One goes along to get along.
In New York the “favor bank” is operational,ours is not as formal but there. Political donations on and under the table are lubricants.
Most citizens would rather live a life in quite desperation than become grist for this mill.
Most of the citizens see right through the grease and grime and posseess a realistic outlook but haven’t a clue as how you change this deep rooted paradigm.
We can always rationalize by comparing us to a banana republic or a totalitarian regime but you don’t have to be a writer of futuristic political fiction to see us marching in lockstep like lemmings off the cliff into an America we might not recognize.
~Excellent post. The mantra of Massachusetts law enforcement is
“Go along to get along”. Thats how cushy jobs and promotions are handed out. Buck the status quo and you join the ranks of the Maimovich’s and others then POOF your done!
Here’s an example of a real cop and the decisions he had to make to maintain his integrity.
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/peter_gelzinis/2013/07/honest_cop_gets_his_due
Notaboyo:
I knew of Dewan. He had an excellent reputation. That is one thing Connolly supporters have never been able to explain, why was it he was libeling a good cop if he was on the level? Thanks for letting me know of the article. There are lots of good cops out there. They go and do the best job they can given the environment they find themselves in where loyalty to the force drags them all down to the level of the worst brute among them. They avoid the pull but can only do so much, because as you said go against the system and you are POOF, and in a department achieving that status can make one miserable. But somehow the good cops stay good an do the job well despite the difficulties.
~`Hopalong: good post, and nice tip of the hat to Thoreau.
Hopalong:
Well said. It’s hard to add anything to it. We are seeing like at no time in our nation’s history the turning of our police departments int para-military forces marching in a uniform goose step to the tune coming out of Homeland Security (along with the money). I was once criticized for suggesting these police forces could be used against us citizens. The person noted that the police are are neighbors. I reminded the person that in all those other police states where the citizens were crushed the police were also neighbors.
I agree!
~`Hey there Brother Bill,
Please check your email for the answer to your recent request.
~Matt,
Interesting the way you weave the tale of the Naimovich persecution.
The stories of betrayal by the government against there own people are all similar in that they involve a number of conspirators who are intent on protecting there own interests instead of honoring their responsibilities.
Notoboyo:
The Naimovich story gets a lot more intriguing. It is really stunningly clear that this was as set up from, as Larry Goldman would say, “the git go.” Thanks for reading it.
~ Wikileaks is reporting that Putin is in negotiations with the State Dept. to extradite Snowden to the U.S. in return for WB, Grieg and Connolly. Will Obama go for that? If the President had an uncle on his mothers side he’d look just like Whitey. 2. What did you think of the Zimmerman verdict? He was charged with murder but the prosecutor never presented the case to the Grand Jury. Geraldo Rivera said he never should have been charged and that if both parties were white or both were black no charges would have resulted. When BHO got in the middle and the race baiters emerged the charges resulted. Wasn’t that case completely political? What sanction should be imposed on a prosecutor who pursues a political case? Corey, like Coakley, Ortiz and Wyshak appear as more abusive than Nyfong. Nyfong went to jail. Our country would be better off with less political prosecutions and more prosecutors who abuse their officr behind bars.
~No comment directly on the verdict in Florida.
I must add that last night here in DC at least 10 people were shot. Two died. One of the deceased is a young Hispanic who’s handsome face, from a recent still, was smiling at me from my TV this morning. Specifics on the other victims were not given, so they were probably Black. Geraldo will probably pick up on the Hispanic kid. The other victims will vanish by the time I finish my lunch today.
Honest:
I’ve written that the tragedy of Zimmerman shooting Trayvon was nothing unusual in America. We have civilians killing civilians continually. My take on the case has been that the media exploded it into a racial incident and then each media outlet tried to outdo each other with the coverage and certain black leaders mau-maued it into a national story. Now that he’s acquitted, they are doing the same thing to the Justice Department which is studying it to decide whether to try him again for some type of civil rights violation.
The Justice Department should only try an acquitted person a second time if the outcoe of first trial was a total miscarriage of justice. Zimmerman’s case was not such. It was tried before an impartial jury which heard the facts and decided the state didn’t prove its case.
1. Putin is dealing with the US. His demands are that he will give us Snowden if we give him Estonia. Obama initially thought Estonia was a singer like Beyonce and agreed to do it. But when he learned it was not that, he’s held off on the deal until Kerry gets back from his sailing trip off Nantucket. The president’s look-a-like uncle would have to be murdered by someone who looked like Whitey’s uncle.
2. Zimmerman was mau maued. I agree with Geraldo. Zimmerman was a cop wannabe. He was too dumb to let the cops do the job. He should not have been carrying. He should not have been roaming around like he was. He did a lot of things wrong – but there was a fight and he had the right to carry and defend himself. I think the death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy, as is the death of any young man, but it does little good to compound one tragedy with another just because some demagogues shout loudly.