Early on Brennan was all over Flemmi. Flemmi thought there was nothing wrong with having sex with his step daughter because she had changed since he went away. She was a different person, he pleaded. He became attracted to her when she was 17 or 18 and he was 40 or so. He kept saying it was consensual.
Brennan did not hold the hammer back at any moment. He took Flemmi slowly through how he took his step daughter (Wyshak complained about his using the term “the girl who called you daddy”) to her death. Flemmi kept trying to put it on Whitey but Brennan had him going shopping with him prior to her murder:
“Did you think it was nice to go shopping with your step-daughter just before bringing her to be murdered?”
“Did you drive her to the place she would be murdered?”
“You could have stopped the murder at any time by stopping the car.”
Flemmi said he tried to stop it before. He gave her money to go to California, Chicago and Florida but she kept coming back. It was as if she was responsible for her own death by her coming back to her mother’s house. Brennan asked him if somehow having given her money that makes him less responsible for her death.
Brennan got into him walking up the walkway to the house to bring his step daughter to her death. He told him that he could he have stopped it. Flemmi said all Whitey had to do was to say “PASS” and we would have let her go. He continually sought to blame Whitey.
Brennan asked him if he was a pedophile and he said, “if you want to see a pedophile look at that table there” indicating toward Bulger.
Brennan was relentless in his examination as I hoped he would be. He even went into the questions of how many teeth he pulled out of her head and showed him the forensic anthropological photo with Flemmi answering “I don’t even want to look at that.”
He dragged Flemmi through all the inconsistencies in the murder of Debbie Davis. Flemmi tells it that it was a traumatic experience and he doesn’t remember why he yelled out “let her pray” after she was already dead. Like with Deborah Hussey Brennan had him putting a rope and not having a rope in the hands of Whitey at the time of her murder. Flemmi begs off saying he can’t remember everything well. It as traumatic. He’s playing into Brennan’s hands.
Flemmi has never taken the heat like this before. Judge Casper had to tell him to answer the questions and he said, “I’m sorry judge, I get a little emotional here.” Brennan is now taking him through the relationship with Debbie Davis who was 17 when he met her. He gave her cars. Brennan brought our how Debbie’s father objected to his relationship with him and then how her father ended up dead. Flemmi said “I know what you are trying to insinuate, that’s off the wall.”
Earlier Flemmi said to Brennan when Brennan asked him if his mother and father knew he was meeting with Connolly, “You asking me if I killed my parents. That’s a ridiculous question.”
Flemmi is very wary of Brennan. He knows he has been shown to be the lying hoodlum dirtball slime he is. He has come out looking as bad as a witness could look. Anytime he tries to get off the hook Brennan asks him why he is bringing something irrelevant up as if to suggest that those things condoned the murder.
There would be few people would believe anything Flemmi says after hearing him testify on this cross-examination. Just think how many people have had their lives destroyed because people in the media have spread his tales as if coming from a reliable or accurate source. Just think of Retired FBI Agent Paul Rico who has been continually libeled by Flemmi.
It is not a matter of picking and choosing what part of a witnesses testimony to believe. It is not a matter of writing a book based on the lies of a horrid man as if they were true. We see here the value of cross-examination as the only way to ferret out a person’s character when done by a skillful lawyer.
There are some people who are so evil and discredited that everything they say must be considered a falsehood and anything based on their testimony should be considered equally false.
I’ve never heard it done but it should be done in this case. The judge should take judicial notice that Flemmi is an inveterate liar and everything he testified to must be stricken from the minds of the jurors.
Got to get back to the trial.
Look at the company Wyshak and Carr and Lehr keep and consider whom they rely upon (and they’ve kept such company and relied upon such untrustworthy persons for over a decade): Flemmi, Martorano, Weeks, Nee, Morris: Isn’t there an adage about being judged by the company you choose to keep?
It is interesting that the reporters do not pull the Pat Née thread. His name seems to come up daily. Clearly they know exactly what kind of deal he has. I’d love to know what the jury thinks of these frequent references to him.
A question for Matt and the legal brains here: can the defense tightly limit the scope of cross exam assuming WB takes the stand? How much wiggle room is there if he tries to keep it to the matters of concern to him (two women and informant status)?
Thank you to Matt and commenters for your insights, this has been fascinating.
Pam:
Whitey will have to limit the cross-examination himself if he chooses to be cross-examined at all. He might have seen how Brennan tore Flemmi apart and choose to refuse to be cross-examined. If he does, I don’t believe anything can be done to him. But to answer your question, there is no way defense can limit it to the informant and two women issue.
I’d like to know more about Pat Nee because it surely mystifies me.
We are all about to know more about Née. He is staring in a new reality show on the discovery channel called Saint Hoods. I guess it debutes in 2 weeks.
Pouty:
I can hardly wait.
That’s exactly what I thought you would say!
Pouty:
I’m predictable.
Matt- Has Wyshak ever been questioned by any media about why he has stooped so low with the perjury of serial killers,the freedom of serial killers, also the pain he has contributed to these families? Does he not have a response to a former fed witness murdered? Can he be cited for not protecting Rakes through at least this shit show of a trial? Politicians need to start taking real heat for this clusterfuck.
Doubting”
Wyshak’s the darling of the media – he is carrying its garbage for it – no one has ever done anything but praise the an in all things – the DOJ protects its own – even when its prosecutors are caught lying to judges nothing happens – how then would anything ever change in the little world of the federals.
If Flemmi just told the truth, he’d be a devastating witness. Instead, he’s damaging the government’s case by contradicting Martorano, Weeks and even himself. Flemmi’s mistake is he’s tailoring his stories to the wrong audience.
Flemmi’s direct testimony was highly scripted and flat. His testimony on cross exam, however, is very determined. During silences between questions, he volunteers accusations against Bulger. He seems to have a job to do to crush Bulger and he is intent on doing it well. Sometimes he bursts out on lengthy, irrelevant, tangents and has to be stopped by the Judge. The jury has laughed out loud at Flemmi. Brennan has helped Flemmi obliterate his credibility with the jury. Flemmi doesn’t seem to know it. His focus is elsewhere.
There is only one person in the world Flemmi cares about pleasing and that’s Fred Wyshak. Flemmi is keenly aware that Wyshak can file a Rule 35 sentence reduction and let Flemmi out of jail tomorrow. Flemmi’s only remaining interest in life is to get out of jail. There is nothing more and nothing less in Flemmi’s world. It’s difficult to imagine a person having only one interest in life, but that is all there is. Wyshak holds the key.
For the last ten years, Flemmi has seduced Wyshak with a vast number of lurid, but questionable, stories about Whitey and John Connolly. Flemmi’s stories pleased Wyshak immensely. Wyshak also enjoyed the thrill of eliciting Flemmi’s smut on direct exam. Flemmi is Wyshak’s ideal government witness. He doesn’t need to be told explicitly what the government wants to hear. He senses it. Flemmi is desperate, immoral, and completely uninhibited.
Flemmi is very much like a hitman who takes a contract from the Mafia and goes blazing after the target. Flemmi took the contract on Bulger from Wyshak, and he’s desperate to whack Bulger from the witness stand. Flemmi’s life depends on it, but his desperation shows. It’s palpable to the jury.
Flemmi has tried too hard to please Wyshak and has alienated the jury. They have laughed openly at Flemmi. By leaping into bed with Flemmi, Wyshak invested in quantity over quality of evidence. Although that’s been an historically effective strategy in Fed Ct, that decision is coming home to roost. Wyshak must want to shoot Flemmi himself.
P
In great scheme of things, how does this affect (if at all) the bottom line of the case against Bulger?
Steely:
It doesn’t affect the outcome. Whitey will be convicted of almost everything. He may geta pass on the women’s murder and some others. But Whitey will testify and tell the truth and if he does testify and tell the truth as I predict, he’ll jam himself in to a lot of criminal activity.
Patty:
True, true, true – Flemmi can’t tell the truth because his performance has been scripted by the government. Everything you say has the ring of truth. Flemmi is a clown but he’s Wyshak’s clown. Wyshak loves everything Flemmi is doing. He wants to hug him.
Wonder how much more Brennan has left. I suppose he’ll end up with the Connolly/FBI relationship, now that he’s established the one with Rico earlier.
Steely:
Brennan will end in about 15 to 20 minutes tomorrow tying it all in – although if he wants to he could go up to morning recess. I think he has made his point. Flemmi should be allowed to ooze himself back into the gutter.
Brennan is definitely dropping the hammer, and hard too ! those are really good questions to Flemmi and I can’t believe he said he couldn’t look at the picture. It’s funny all these guys that did anything Whitey told them to are now turning on him without hesitation with the finger pointing and the arguments and comments made toward one another. It has to be tough for a juror to forget what they just saw or heard if told to by the judge, kind of like the saying I can forgive but I’ll never FORGET. I look forward to reading the continuation of Flemmi being questions.
Craig:
Just posted it. It’s hard to put it in words. I’ve gone back over the tweets by others – they point a picture of something that really doesn’t exist – you have to see Flemmi’s expression and his looks at Brennan – like who the hell does this kid think he is talking to? The more you see him the more evil he looks. I’m waiting for the horns to pop on his head.
The redirect should be amusing.
Well said
Ernie:
Thanks
Steely:
Wyshak can’t help himself – he’ll actually try to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. It won’t be pretty but I’m sure they are rehearsing it right now.
Why not question Flemmi about other murders & crimes committed by his family? We now know his brother was involved with Barboza in the Deegan murder and his police officer brother stored their weapons.
What about his parents? We saw paychecks from the liquor store made out to his mother, and they buried bodies in his parents basement. How much more did they know?
Finally, why not find out where all the weapons (esp machine guns) came from? And, where did they purchase the arms for the IRA? Certainly this would tie Pat Nee further into the spider web and lead to his prosecution also?!? Wyshack seems to be steering clear of Pat Nee as is the Boston Globe – Cullen & Murphy always say “another mobster” or something similar, never using Nee’s name in any of their reporting?!?
Jim:
Much of what you wrote about has come out. There’s so much it is difficult to cover it all. Pat Nee can’t be tied in any more than he has alredy been tied in but he’s got some deal with the federals that protects him. As far as the Globe, it marches to the tune of the federals. Perhaps they are nice to Nee because when he came to the US from Ireland to foul our fair land he was a paper boy for the Globe.
…He also beat the daylights out his boss there and shot the windows out of the building. But if he’s anti whitey they’re all on the same team.
Jim:
That’s what seems to be overlooked, they are all part of the same team and as a group they are reprehensible.
Speaking of the media, I find it heartwarming that Kevin Cullen still refers to him as “Stevie” in his tweets.
Declan:
Don’t get me going on Cullen.
Here’s the NYT parroting the conventional wisdom on Whitey. Notice the insinuation about Billy Bulger, and try not to be too beside yourself reading the tip of the hat to Cullen and Murphy seeming to know Whitey better than Whitey himself:
“In his day, he held Boston in thrall and some fear. If you didn’t know somebody who knew somebody who had trembled in his presence, you at least engaged in those Where’s Whitey conversations during his prolonged absence, and wondered how much his erudite brother, William Bulger — once the powerful president of the Massachusetts Senate — knew about his elder sibling’s exploits and whereabouts. One could easily imagine all the attention feeding the preening vanity of Mr. Bulger, who used to admire his muscular figure in the reflections of cars parked outside his headquarters, according to the recent book “Whitey Bulger: America’s Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice,” by Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy, two Boston Globe reporters who seem to know Mr. Bulger better than he knows himself.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/us/in-bulger-trial-old-partners-meet-on-opposite-sides.html?ref=stephenjflemmi&_r=0
Jon:
It is all the same vultures feeding off of the same carcass. It makes one wonder how little true news we get from the media. Well, it’s worse than that, the more you know about a subject the more you know our media engages in total fiction in many things. No one seems to want to think outside the box. I am told that the words engraved above one of the nation’s most prominent journalist school is “You Can Come Here But We Don’t Want You To Think.”
wow
as Hal Roache would say” God I wish I was out there with you”
Hopalong:
It got better if you could believe it
Boston.com headline of this morning’s testimony is flemmi calls whietey a “pedophile”.
If they were tepprting on the b.c. Doug flutie hail Mary pass Miami game the headline would be about the halftime show.
Great way for Stevie to bolster his credibility– accuse Bulger of a crime he *hasn’t* been charged with.
Steely:
If Stevie brough a fork lift into court he couldn’t get his credibility off of the floor.
Ernie:
The Boston Globe dutifully passes on to the creduous public stories of fantasy.
How low can the Globe go? How low can Carr, Gelzinis, Cullen, O’Neil and Lehr go? They won’t retract one lying word from their books based on Flemmi’s, Martorano’s, Morris’s and Weeks fabrications. They won’t because it might cost them money or fame or power within the insides of our corrupt media, which work hand in glove with the DOJ. One hand washes the other—and together they wash away the truth!!! The Globe and DOJ ask us to believe the serial killers’ words.
William:
Being in the Boston media means never having to say you are sorry.
Hitler in Mein Kampf spoke to what is happening in the Boston media and the Whitey Bulger story. He wrote: (Google Big LIe)
“All this was inspired by the principle–which is quite true within itself–that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.”
—Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X[1]
William
You summed it up perfectly. A cesspool of filth and corruption foisted on the public courtesy of the boston media and the USAO.
Great post. You wonder how this Flemmi meltdown (and it isn’t over, of course), together with the evasions about Nee, will play into the jurors’ view of the prosecution.
Wait until wyshak meltdown when whitey testifies
Ernie:
Yes, that is yet to come. Have to go out at intermission and buy some more popcorn.
Steely:
It’s a good question but since Whitey is determined to testify then the jurors will have little work to do. Too bad Whitey wants to tell his story. If it ended now the jury might go home and not come back – an unanimous judgment of disgust with our government.