On Soup Bowl Sunday, February 7, 2016 I sent off the following letter to Federal Judge F. Dennis Saylor, IV,
Dear Judge Saylor,
I write on behalf of Catherine Greig. Her predicament reminds me of what Mae West once said: “Ladies who play with fire must remember that smoke gets in their eyes.” True though that is, I’d suggest Inmate Greig never thought that the consequences of doing it would have her ending up like the Maid of Orleans losing her freedom and dying at the hands of the state.
I suggest in the annals of American jurisprudence no woman has ever been punished as severely by the federal judicial system as Inmate Greig considering that she committed no violent act, had no prior criminal record, was not involved in drugs or a large monetary fraud.
She has been caught up in what I call the Whitey Saga. You are familiar with it. It has been highlighted in the media for years. Judge Woodlock, your fellow justice, succumbed to it. He did something quite extraordinary due to it aside from his draconian sentence. He found, according to the First Circuit Court of Appeals that the family members of the victims of Whitey “suffered at the hands of Bulger rather than Greig.” Despite that he let them speak at her sentencing. He did so because of what he perceived was the media interest. The appeals court noted he thought it was the “right thing” to do and that it was important, . . . for. . . the community, . . . “ The result was Inmate Greig was forced to sit and suffer excoriation and being called “a dirty bitch” for the crimes of someone else to sate the media’s desire.
Whitey Bulger, a man who few outside the small criminal community knew existed before his flight in December 1994 has been elevated in the media to a man “who terrorized Boston for twenty-five years.” He really was an evil and brutal guy but truly he left little footprints and in no way affected Boston. I suggest you keep him in perspective and not as a media in its hysteria has created him. I ask you to consider this case away from the madness that surrounds it. Away from the zealous importuning of the prosecutors who have forgotten former Attorney General Eric Holder’s admonition to them that “[y]our job is to do justice. Your job is in every case, every decision that you make, to do the right thing.”
Hardly can it be said “the right thing” is being done when all the associates of Whitey Bulger who committed the murders and other violent acts they attributed to him are free while his girlfriend who committed no violent acts, and whose influence on Whitey stopped his violence, is still in prison. And now the prosecutors seek more prison time.
I need not go into all the depravities of Whitey or even the worse ones committed by his associates that they put on him. A couple will suffice. For example, take John Martorano who got $50,000 from John Callahan to murder Roger Wheeler a legitimate business man. He shot him in the head in Tulsa. He then shot Callahan in the head at Fort Lauderdale. He kept all the money. When caught he said Whitey made him do it. He admitted to 18 other murders mostly of unarmed men he shot in the head and most which he did before he knew Whitey. He got $20,000 from the federal government after doing 12 years. Or take Stephen Flemmi who probably murdered as many as Martorano but also murdered two women with whom he had a relationship. He too is not in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.
Martorano made six figures telling of his sordid life; Flemmi was allowed to keep millions of dollars of property. The list of murderers, all lifelong criminals, who are beneficiaries of the federal government in the Whitey Bulger Saga who served little or no time and are walking the street is astonishing: Kevin Weeks, Frank Salemme, Pat Nee, and Howie Winter to name but a few.
Whitey, as you know, will die in prison. He cannot be punished any more than has been done. His FBI handler, John Connolly, although found not responsible by a Boston jury for the death of John Callahan was retried in Florida by the same prosecutors and found guilty. He likely will die in prison. We are now down to Catherine Greig. The prosecutors want you to put her in the same situation as John Connolly, two people with no prior criminal records dying in prison while those who led lives of crimes and murdered many people are out and about.
A few things I want to emphasize about her.
First, when she left with Whitey to be with him during his flight from justice no one knew Whitey was accused of any murders. Those accusations came three or more years later. Whitey was only fleeing from charges involving gaming, extortion and money laundering. If at some time she learned of those murder charges, there is no proof she believed that the man she was in love with was that vile. Unfairly and against all notions of American justice, the courts assume without a scintilla of evidence she believed Whitey murdered some people.
Second, she is unique aside from the sentence received. In your vast experience have you ever seen the girlfriends or wives of Mafia leaders, drug dealers, Madoff-like people, murderers or even terrorists treated like her? Was the wife or sisters of Tamerlan Tsarnaev dragged into to testify? Do you recall any woman in a relationship with a criminal who was called before a grand jury and asked about who may have associated with or helped that criminal? It is hard to close one’s eyes to this stark difference in treatment Inmate Greig is suffering.
Finally, and most importantly, what is purpose behind this extraordinary event? We are not dealing with a life or death situation or matters of national interest. The prosecutor avers it wants to learn who may have helped her during the flight and perhaps whether Whitey had other assets. I suggest the latter is doubtful. The huge amount of cash he had hidden in the walls of his apartment would seem to be all that was left sixteen years after he stopped his criminal activity.
If Inmate Greig testified in the grand jury that some helped her no prosecutions will come from it. The statute of limitations has run on just about all such activities and will expire on the few left in June. Even if some who did help her denied doing it before a grand jury their testimony is also beyond the statutory limit.
There have been leaks from the Boston grand jury before connected with the Whitey saga. These were designed to embarrass people. One naturally wonders since no prosecutions can come from the information whether the prosecutors seek to use her testimony not to prosecute but to embarrass others by leaking it to the media or others. This is hardly a proper use of a grand jury. How can you be sure you are not being drafted into their plan sub silentio?
I suggest that continuing to demand her testimony serves no purpose. It is no longer justice. It is a flagellation. It surpasses anything we have seen in the history of our justice system. It should not be abetted by additional punishment.
Keep in mind, this woman has been sentenced to greater terms than the local federal judges have recently sentenced high ranking life-long criminal members of the Mafia. More years than Keven Weeks who murdered five people. She aided and abetted a man now serving a life sentence. Both she and he have been punished severely for their crimes, she even more than him. She has been in prison almost five years. She has no evidence of criminal activity that can lead to prosecutions.
I respectfully request that you to look at the whole picture. Do not be swayed by the media madness and prosecutor’s strange vindictiveness that encapsulates this case. Try not to listen to the baying of the mob. Do not become entrapped in the Whitey Saga. Act judiciously and boldly as your position demands.
I would ask you to refraining from adding on time to this woman who will be in prison until near age seventy as it is who except for nonviolent crimes committed while Whitey’s companion committed no others.
Respectfully.
@ MS
Hilarious that when I wrote last post I considered an addendum warning readers to expect a “Inevitable Ms.Freeh ” spam post. I have noted before now that any of my brilliant journalistic forays 🙂 so provokes your stolid, mulish , left in the back benches dullardness that you try to play off my … play.
You are out of your league . I went to Prep School in Cambridge, on Brattle Street, for the eighth grade after getting caught with an unloaded 38 in the seventh and being expelled. I recognized then the genetically challenged type of thumbsucking, checkered pants loaded envious WASP schoolboy that you are. I banged their head off the school lockers then. You are old now and soon the worm will turn on your sluggish progress through your personal element and favorite medium … The Muck … so why bother slapping your ilk around now.
You have a singularly creepy tone in your ” www. boy down the lane ” posts that makes me suspect that more than your head was getting banged in the locker room as a forlorn, undistinguished, and indistinguishable Preppie. Perhaps this accounts for your pathology and mean spirit. That’s your problem. When Saul Alinsky pisses on your grave for being such an ineffectual, moronic, and shabby avatar of his revolutionary consciousness that was grounded in a deep compassion for the suffering of the Jack Powers’ of the world, a sick and feeble rose indeed will appear … Robert Shetterly aka Ms, Freeh. It will be a fitting headstone capping a rather sick career in Life’s Slime … and sliming.
In future, unless you have something pertinent and intelligible to say, do not spam my posts or this blog with your airy and witless personal maunderings. Ta” 🙂
for the uneducated
and the uneducable
The Sick Rose
BY WILLIAM BLAKE
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
Doug Kinan,
Yes, certainly your comments are read . Perhaps there is comfort in realizing that MTC has consistently written about the same overbearing abuse of federal power, especially by , , but not limited to the US Attorney’s Office and its functionaries. So it seems as if you both give your custom to the same haberdasher after all. Although there are many different hats crowning different heads and different occasions.
Google : Jack Powers ADX Florence, Colorado. He is the flagship inmate in a landmark suit recently and successfully concluded by an Attorney Aros and other legal eagles of the very finest feather, against the Federal BOP. So crazed by solitary confinement and a species of passive and active sadism institutionalized by the BOP in its protocols regarding refusal of mental health services and psychotropic drugs to inmates flatly and basically being tortured in such a ” Clean Version Of Hell” as a former Warden described it, Powers engaged in a series of horrific self-mutilations. He successively cut off two fingers, removed a testicle, and in an act of self- trepanation Hannibal Lecter would have glowed at, opened his skull to try to induce bacteria to cross the blood brain barrier. Powers was a bank robber. By rather cursed circumstances relating to his witnessing an Aryan Brotherhood murder and testifying for the Feds he followed a trail of broken promises which ended in the ADX.
During his bloodily stunning career of self-mutilations he was offered no mental health services. That has now changed. The suit was successful. He is now ” in population ” in a medium security Federal BOP facility, and is receiving mental health care.
We call ourselves ” CIVILIZED ” 🙂 … WE are BRUTAL !!! So … Keep your hat on .
REASONS TO CREATE A VOLUNTEER CIVILIAN REVIEW
POLICE BOARD WITH SUBPOENA POWERS
1.
The VCRPB must have subpoena powers
2.
The VCRPB must be all volunteer with 10-15
members that turn over to new members every
three years.
3.
The VCRPB must have the power to hire and
fire law enforcement.
4. The VCRPB must set and enforce standards of
performance for law enforcemet as well as the
entire criminal justice system
5.
The VCRPB must have the ability to expand
it’s oversight to the courts and jails.
Setting and enforcing standards for those
taxpayer owned institutions as well.
Realizing the success or failure of a community’s
need for safety is determined by the successful
creation and enforcement of standards
for the police,courts and prisons.
6.
The VCRPB must recognize the criminal
justice institutional models it creates
contributes to the psychological
evolution of the community members
to the extent the community allows
itself to be participants not recipients
in the creation of the criminal justice system
model.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/3535116-155/activists-call-for-changes-to-salt
Activists call for changes to Salt Lake City’s police civilian review board
By MICHAEL MCFALL | The Salt Lake Tribune connect
First Published Feb 13 2016 05:27PM •
@ Ms
Heavens … What would Noam Chomsky say … the patron saint of the well heeled revos … It’s all ” Food On The Table ” Elbows … Learn to listen … You’re an elitist in a world that left you as usual in the worst room in the best Prep School … Lo …. those many years ago 🙂
Matt
I have to make this quick as the winds blow fiercely
on the sides of Eaton Mountain in Vienna Maine
where temperatures will drop to -9 below zero tonight
with a wind chill of -29 below zero
We just rushed Elbows Wychulis to the
ER in Farmington Maine when he had
a post traumatic syntactic seizure after
reading this edition of Matt’s blog
aloud to the “Elbows Irregulars” ,
These are women and men gathered
around the Green Mountain coffee
dispenser at Flying Pond Variety
whose sole daily mission is to interpret
the Matt Connolly Moveable Feast Rorschach
Test compiled by 3rd degree black belts
in lip.
Elbows pointed to his Med Alert bracelet
as the EMT crew loaded him onto
the gurney.
There inscribed on the bracelet
was the medical warning.
” patient will go into
anathylactic shock
caused by viewing blue collar english
that has been translated into latin”
I have dutifully sent a copy of your letter to
http://boydownthelane.com/
Think you meant “anaphylactic” shock, there Doc.
Matt:
I find it strange that no one has the ability to respond to my factual comments, don’t you?
Doug:
I don’t find it strange since operating the blog I see that people march to thousand different drummers and some are interested in some thing but not others and even when interested few respond.
Matt:
Are you speaking with your prosecutor hat or your journalism hat? There is a difference.
You were “there” and you know how easy it is to frame an innocent person.
Some prosecutors who don’t know or have never witnessed a frame up must have been asleep on the job or too afraid to speak up.
It takes no courage or conscience to frame an innocent person, only the desire for a career boost and a few bucks. I know firsthand because I was always against frame ups, retaliation and more and always stopped it when I could.
You should also know that frame ups are not news as they are happening because poor and disconnected people have no voice. Frame ups only make news many years later, after the damage has been done and lives are destroyed.
As examples, I know firsthand about two frame ups currently in progress. Do you think the media will report on those facts? Of course not, because the persons being framed have no money or no connections. All they have on their side is the facts and the evidence.
Anyone not liking the message, don’t shoot the messenger.
[email protected]
Government Advocate & Witness
Doug:
I speak with my prosecutor and journalism hat. I knew no prosecutors who would frame an innocent person but I worked on the state side where our success or lack of it had little bearing on our careers. We didn’t keep score. I was not asleep and was in charge of an office and I never witnessed one nor would I countenance one. We believed there could be nothing worse than charging (never mind incarcerating)a person with a crime unless we were certain the person committed the crime.
I was there and I knew how we operated. No frame ups ever happened. All defendants had competent counsel. I don’t know what your experience is but it certainly is 180 degrees opposite of mine.
Matt:
For the purpose of my message, consider me a “Hatmaker” who makes Hats, not heads. If the Hat doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.
Your partial response speaks well of your character, honesty and integrity. What about the remainder of my posts?
Does anyone on this thread have a response?
[email protected]
Mr. Kinan,
It appears that George Perrot was/is innocent. I agree with your factual comments.
I am all for using the techniques of modern forensic science to undo false convictions, as well as obtain airtight new ones.
Rather,
Yours is the first sensible argument I have heard posited regarding this gambit. I have been hard on MTC. He is moved by a spirit of gallantry, but fairness left on a bus to nowhere long ago. James Bulger calls the shots. Always has, and he does have a temper. So, yes, we will see if rash action is countenanced by a worthy Judge Saylor, or descried by him as a Pandora’s Box key better left on the prosecutor’s chatelaine. There is a serious conceit in supposing that falling upon the sword does not a world of amends make. I like the way you think there , Rather . It is indeed a trigger . And Jimmy loves his Guns .
John,
Thank you. Likewise.
In your opinion, could the C.G.S.P. (Cathy Grieg Squeeze Play) be a ploy to elicit a reaction from you know who?
Thanks.
Rather,
Well stated as usual, Friend . To say more on her behalf at this stage ignores the COC . I do what I can . She is being rawly dealt with. Caveat Emptor to all who accept that the affairs of man and woman are not governed by a Divine Providence … not simply Providence 🙂 … GOD KNOWS 🙂
@JPC .. ” Inter faeces et urinam nascimur ” …. between shit and piss we are born 🙂 … Keep those cards and letters coming though … Your eloquence is a boon to the spirit of chaos . Out of chaos emerges … Murder ??? … Order ??? … feel free to discuss among your various personalities , Schoolboy .
less than * valiant attempt to TRULY RESCUE GREIG
Don’t get a sore arm patting yourself on the back ; too little, too late. You envy Jimmy Bulger for some strange reason, and in not acknowledging the fortitude with which he prevailed for decades in shark suited FBI/GANGLAND waters you create a false and personal note of offended sensibility.
You built this blog on his back. You rode the coattails of his notoriety to some semblance of notoriety for yourself. There is nothing wrong with that. You are not the worst guy in the world. I’ve told you that before.
That said, your courtly and officious appeal to Judge Saylor on behalf of Catherine Greig is a ” wicked good ” feel good exercise I am sure, but is ineffectual in his lobby.
Catherine Greig needed letters and pickets on the first go round. You operate in the dark as to facts in these cases and do not even know it. But the FBI does know. So either go to the heart of the deal, which is the Bulger Appeal, and Jeremiah O’Sullivan’s complicity in enabling, officially, Bulger’s actions, or keep your peace about matters you truthfully do not know the truth of.
Lachrymose letters on Catherine’s behalf that adopt the Harlequin Romance approach do not substitute to tasking the Federal Judiciary for their honest role of trying to straighten out this mess. Encapsulating the entire PHENOMENOM OF BULGER in testy and crabby denunciations of a hyperbolic ” He terrorized Boston for 25 years … etc.” does not serve the truth. Celebrity and celebrity mongering is a sorry substitute for having the intestinal fortitude to say … Whoa …. What a totally fucked up deal this all is … We all know it … We all know there are worlds completely unrevealed about it … and in what Hannah Arendt called the ” Banality Of Evil ” referring to civilian complaisance and complacence about Nazi sins and sinning, WE are all complicit in … looking the other way. I cite Uhlar as a notable exception to this, although her naivete about the Underworld of Boston as well as the Underworld of the FBI and the Federal Judiciary, disconcerts.
A valiant spirit, but a less than valuabt attempt to TRULY RESCUE GREIG. That will be left to the better angels of Judge Dennis Saylor’s spirit. Never send a boy to do a Man’s Job . Tis’ certain that Jimmy Bulger did not .
Mr MacDonald — You are full of shit !!!
Post of the year!
John,
“Caveat lector”………it is…
“ad captundum vulgus.”
“Cum grano salis…..dictum sapienti sat est.”
R.N.
Matt,
No offense to the Cathy Grieg love-fest, but in other news…..victims get offer (in writing) for about 51k per family in return for promise not to sue the government in the future.
What a slap in the face.
http://www.wcvb.com/news/bulger-victims-families-offered-money-not-to-sue/37941582
Random questions for Matt:
Were any of Whitey’s guns found in Santa Monica connected ballistically to murders in Boston?
Check out what the Judge thought Cathy knew about the guns and cash during sentencing testimony in 2012.
http://livewire.wcvb.com/Event/Catherine_Greig_Sentencing?Page=3
Rather:
Do me a favor. Tell me how the widow of John Callahan who hired Martorano to hit Wheeler is a victim?
I’m not sure there was any connection between those guns and the murders. Remember Whitey did not murder most of the people he was charged with murdering.
Matt,
I guess her claim is questionable IF Johnny’s word is good.
Strange that they charged him with 19 murders and never tried to link any that were attributed to him with machine guns to the arsenal of guns that he had…..Halloran, Connors, Plummer?
Great letter. Still working on mine. Posting my thoughts on my Facebook page as well. If anyone cares to check it out: Janet Uhlar: American Revolution Books.
Matt, a very fine letter.
Do you expect that judges read routinely any letters addressed to them? Do you believe that judges are wary of reading such correspondence from the public involving an open, active matter such as this lest they somehow allow themselves to be swayed by the contents?
In the case of your letter, I imagine that Saylor would easily stop reading it once he reads the first sentence and sees Greig’s name. I say this even if Saylor is not part of the runaway DOJ machinery that apparently seeks to damage absolutely anyone whom they perceive (or wish to perceive) as fully knowledgeable of (and completely complicit in) all of Whitey’s evil acts.
GOK;
It is difficult to know what an individual judge will do. It is not uncommon for judges to receive letters after a person pleads guilty – for instance I believe Judge Tauro received over 200 from supporters of John Connolly which did him little good.
Hopefully the judge will read the letter. If not, I believe that it will become part of the court record and will be open to the attorneys on both sides to read as well as the public down the road. Just having it sit there is important so that at some future time when people interested in how justice works will be able to discover it.
Matt et al:
To answer your question on “career suicide”, in its proper context, Judge Saylor may not want to be shunned and ostracized. I would like to be wrong, but courageous decisions seem to be a thing of the past; consensus decisions are in.
In the American court system, the law, the facts and the evidence mean almost nothing. The evidence to prove what I say is in your very own, well written letter.
The Boston office of the FBI, working together with the United States Attorney’s office has sufficiently demonstrated that the law is broken. When the rules and the law are no longer the rules and the law it means that the FBI and the DOJ are above the law.
Your letter also proves that the “clean hands doctrine” carries zero weight. And judges no longer recognize 18 USC 4.
Based on my direct knowledge, discretion has overruled facts, law and evidence, especially when the FBI, working with the U.S. Attorney’s office bands together to intentionally cover up massive public corruption and theft of honest government services for self serving interests.
Additionally, there is no such thing as the “rule of law”, no such thing as “equal justice under the law” and no such thing as a “fair trial.” If anyone thinks so, answer this: Can a pro se litigant or one with a public defender use a Broomstick against a Bazooka?
The courts have abandoned the doctrine of clean hands and Brady violations are well concealed and/or ignored until many years later, as in the most recent case of George Perrot, who spent 30 years in prison for a rape that the victim witness said, on two occasions, he did not commit. Perrot spent 30 years in prison because some prosecutor didn’t like him and a “neutral” judge looked the other way. Period.
Thus, as I continue to say and your letter proves, the “rule of law’ has been replaced by the “rule of like.”
It took a courageous Judge Robert Kane for a just ruling to free Perrot. We don’t have too many Robert Kane’s around these days. The state will not retry the case because there was no evidence 30 years ago and there will be none now, especially when the media is involved.
Those are the facts. If you don’t believe me, re-read your letter.
[email protected]
Sworn & Commissioned Officer, Massachusetts Trial Court (Retired)
Matt:
Under your argument it would take a courageous judge to do the “justice” you talk about, which may be tantamount to career suicide.
Essentially, you are asking Judge Saylor to do his job and take a chance on being ostracized in every way possible a’ la Attorney General Kathleen Kane and the “enemy she just couldn’t destroy.” It’s almost impossible to believe that Attorney General Kane, the top law enforcement official in Pennsylvania, would receive whistle blower treatment for doing her job.
I don’t know anything about Ms. Grieg, but according to some of the principals and the press, we know that the Boston FBI and the Boston U.S. Attorney’s office aided and abetted most of the criminal activity involved in the Whitey Bulger story. The leaks, lies, manipulations, deceptions and other fraudulent activity reported is staggering.
America no longer has a “justice” system. It’s a legal system designed to retaliate against those who disagree with public corruption and government crime by consensus and those with no money or connections.
Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorism is mild compared to the destruction caused by public corruption and government crime in America and no one can or will do anything to stop it.
In my view, the fourth estate which used to be an independent press has now become, in many cases, the “fourth branch of government.”
Public corruption is the new normal in America and those who manage to do it “properly” are the beneficiaries of huge rewards, as you have accurately pointed out in your letter to Judge Saylor.
Based on my direct knowledge, truth-telling in a court of law is far more dangerous than drugging and raping scores of defenseless women.
[email protected]
Doug:
How can a guy with a life job commit career suicide? You are right that it will take a judge with some fortitude to rise about the clamor of the media and so-called victims. You point out correctly that many in the FBI, not only in Boston, did ten times more to facilitate Whitey’s evil ways than Greig could ever have done which I could have mentioned in my letter but space requirements limited me. All except Connolly escaped with no punishment.
As I understand it the original idea behind the media was to ensure democracy functioned properly or at least in the way they thought it should perform. It was given the First Amendment so that it could jump on any missteps it perceived. As time passed it became more interested in profits which meant not biting the hand that was feeding it. An interesting tale in America is how the feds treated the Black press around the turn of the century by limiting its mailing rights. When the government can censor publications by keeping them from circulating there is quite a chill on those rights.
A cogent plea for Justice. Thank you.
The White House has a mechanism for presenting a petition to the President. If the requirements are met it will be replied to. The threshold is tough, a 100,000 signatories within 30 days. [It was originally 25,000 they were taken aback at answering the large number of petitions from states all across America wanting to secede from the government in Washington.]
The procedure is simple if anyone wants to give it a shot. One could ask for a commutation of her sentence. Promoting it is a matter of skill and how savvy one in on the Internet which, however minimal exceed a man in his 70s. It in itself could generate some publicity.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/step-step-guide
Tadzio:
The new threshold of 100,000 signatures in 30 days makes it just about impossible for anyone to bother the bureaucrats. Even assuming that could be done, and if it is done for anyone aside from Greig it should be done for John Connolly, the matter is sent to the Department of Justice for review. There any petition for anyone associated with Whitey would be buried. No one would want to go out in front on it. That is why a letter to the judge is really the last best hope.
Great letter. Why not also send it to the Globe, Herald, Patriot Ledger, NY Times, and other media that might run with it ? Great letter !!!
JPC:
Thanks – but the receptacles you mention probably already have access to it. I believe these letters are made part of the public record. It does run up against their stated positions so it is doubtful they would print it. It is already available to people at the Patriot Ledger through my blog there. http://www.patriotledger.com/article/20160212/BLOGS/302129984/-1/blogs01
At a minimum I hope it comes to the judge’s attention either by him reading it or her attorney adopting some of the arguments set out in it. No matter what it is there for the future unless some how the Justice Department can make it disappear.
JPC:
Do you really this truth has any chance of being published? Didn’t you read my post?
[email protected]