Yesterday, I mentioned we should know who the characters are who are involved with Billy. I suppose the ones I should initially talk about are those who were involved in the 75 State Street episode, the one matter that is the ace card of all those who suggest Billy is corrupt.
Alan Dershowitz in one of his diatribes against Billy wrote: “Billy, who was suspected of extorting a quarter-million-dollar bribe from the Boston developer who was building a skyscraper at 75 State Street. Business as usual.”
Dershowitz’s uses words loosely so it’s best we define extortion. Here’s what one site says: “Most states define extortion as the gaining of property or money by almost any kind of force, or threat of 1) violence, 2) property damage, 3) harm to reputation, or 4) unfavorable government action. While usually viewed as a form of theft/larceny, extortion differs from robbery in that the threat in question does not pose an imminent physical danger to the victim.”
That’s a fair general description. Massachusetts extortion law is in Chapter 265, section 25 of the General Laws. It reads as it relates to this matter as follows: “Whoever . . . verbally or by written or printed communication maliciously and unlawfully uses or threatens to use against another the power or authority vested in him, with intent thereby to extort money or any pecuniary advantage, or with intent to compel any person to do any act against his will, shall be punished . . .”
The thrust of the accusations against Billy is that he used his political office or allowed it to be used to take money from a Boston developer, as Dershowitz called him. The name of the developer happens to be Harold Brown. The money went from Brown to Billy through a conduit, Thomas Finnerty who was Billy’s law partner. Billy had no direct dealings with Brown.
The background is the 75 State Street skyscraper project. The time frame is sometime around the middle of the 1980s. It’s an interesting story that I’m not quire ready to tell because a wild woman named Sandy decided to blow in yesterday taking away my electricity.
I can tell you this about it right now. There was no extortion. Harold Brown was not a guy one could threaten. He said this of himself in relation to people he competed with, “”They’re tough, but I’m tougher.” He was surrounded by lawyers, as we will see, and continually involved in litigation. He is one of the biggest landowner Boston and a reputed billionaire. He used money to get things he wanted. He never gave up a penny without a purpose. The money Harold Brown gave to Finnerty was done willingly. This will be continued.
I’m also behind on a post I wanted to make about Judge Stearns’s denial of the motion by J.W. Carney to recuse himself from the trial of Whitey. It was reported in the media that J.W. Carney without having been heard in oral argument lost. This is his second loss on this issue.
I have not read the motion of Carney nor Judge Stearns decision which he issue on Sunday. I did notice in the Globe a quote from it that I found quite curious. Judge Stearns wrote: “Defendant undoubtedly prefers not to be tried on the schedule set by the court, or not to be tried at all. . . But like [former associates] Kevin Weeks, Kevin O’Neil, Stephen Flemmi, and Michael Flemmi, all of whom have appeared as defendants before me in this case, James Bulger’s case will be adjudicated by the rules of the court, and not the contrary wishes of defendant or defendant’s counsel.”
Where did Judge Stearns ever come up with the idea that Whitey prefers “not to be tried at all”? It seems like a testy and unnecessary statement for judge to make. From all I can see J.W. Carney has never indicated that. All he has asked for is a chance to go through the huge volume of evidence to properly prepare the case.
Is Judge Stearns taking the heat from an article written by the Globe’s Joan Vennochi stating he should recuse himself? She wrote: “Stearns was an assistant US attorney and chief of the criminal division during many of the years that Bulger was allegedly committing heinous murders. Yet he writes that he knew zero about Bulger’s secret deal with the FBI and had no knowledge “of any case or investigation” in which Bulger was “a subject or a target.” “
I weighed in on the issue after the first time Stearns turned Carney down.
Judge Stearns in his denial then offered up the names of four defendants who have appeared before him in order to show, I’m not quite sure what? I can’t figure it out. He says those cases have been adjudicated by the rules of the court. I assumed that. I also assumed that every other case that has been in front of Stearns has been similarly handled in that manner. Why then the necessity to name those four persons. They may have been associates of Whitey, but their cases were totally different.
Kevin Weeks, Stephen Flemmi, and Kevin O’Neill all pleaded guilty. They did not have to prepare for trial. They all cooperated with the government and got good deals and then went in before Judge Stearns to have him give his approval to the deals. They are in no way analogous to the case against Whitey.
Michael Flemmi went to trial on gun charges and was convicted. He was accused of keeping the guns for his brother. It wasn’t a complicated case. It in no way compares to the 19 murders, each of which has to be defended against, that Whitey is charged with.
Joan Vennochi said: “Stearns’s refusal . . . gives Bulger an issue to raise on appeal.” True, but as I’ve said, no appeals court will be interested in any issue raised by Bulger. If he is going to win it has to be with a jury. The judges have already settled on his guilt. But she also said that if Carney is not bluffing then “Stearns could be revealed as one more person caught up in the web of dishonor between Bulger and the FBI.”
I don’t know why Judge Stearns wants to put himself in that position. Maybe he knows Vennochi’s criticism from the Boston Globe is an outlier. She might not write on it again and soon the Globe will be praising him.
Reading between the lines of the little I’ve seen of Judge Stearns’s denial is that this Thursday Carney will be faced with a big DENIED stamped on his motion for a continuance. Judge Stearns having set an arbitrary date for the beginning of the trial is not going to change it.
http://www.wbur.org/2012/08/09/stearns-recusal-bulger
Here’s an interesting article by an outspoken Whitey-hater concluding Judge Stearns is clearly violating the law by not recusing himself. The article quotes a nationally known legal expert on recusal law who suggest’s Stearns’ behavior is intentional because his written opinion fails to cite either of the two US Supreme cases which are the first and last word on the law of recusal. Any opinion about recusal that doesn’t cite this precedent is conclusive evidence of a rush to judgment, if not an outright lynching.
Thanks for the reference to that article. I see it was written in August and had little effect on Stearns. It looks like there is a game afoot. I wrote a long time ago that the idea of the judiciary is to move this along as fast as it is humanly possible. No one cares if Carney is able to prepare or not. Judge Stearns knows that he’ll not be reversed no matter what he does, even if he sits, as I’ve said before, 16 jurors who will all swear that under no circumstance will they find Bulger not guilty.
Carney knows this. He has to keep plugging away as if it is on the level. Thursday if his motion for a continuance is denied and the dates set for filing and hearing of substantive motions are set then there is no doubt the rush is on. The FBI has apparently figured there’s no way to stop Whitey so it will be pushing this also since the longer it lingers the more people will realize nothing has changed since Whitey’s days. I do see Boeri in court at all the hearings as one of the regulars. He has a good grasp of what is going on it seems to me after reading that article. Thanks for writing and making me aware of the article.
Boeri is certainly knowledgeable, but he is extremely biased. His brother is/was a DEA agent who chased Whitey for years with no luck. Whitey was tipped to the DEA’s ‘station’ in South Boston and he toyed with the DEA agents there.
I have to assume Boeri’s bread and butter is fed to him by federal law enforcement and like all other reporters in Boston, that is a hand he cannot afford to bite.
Boeri does, however, reach the conclusion on his own that the USA is protecting Pat. Further, Boeri reads between the lines (and lies) of Weeks and can see the hand of Nee in the waterfront shootings, the McIntyre murder and even the Barrett murder. Boeri approached Nee on the street in 2000 with a camera crew and confronted Nee about the Mcintyre murder, etc. Nee didn’t respond in the video.
I worked at some point with Boeri’s brother when he was with DEA along with Al Reilly, Jimmy Sullivan and others. We did a wiretap out of Walpole on a Lebonese guy who spoke Spanish and Arabic. Ended up bringing DEA agents who had Puerto Rican or Mexican backgrounds. They hated each other. They would translate the intercepted calls differently apparently the Spanish each group spoke differed. It was the most frustrating wiretap I ever did because I had no idea who giving me the right scoop. The only good part of it was when the Mexican agents flew in their girlfriends who cooked for all of us at the wiretap plant that was at an apartment in Walpole. The food was delicious.
Boeri probably is fed stuff from DEA or others but I don’t see that it has caused him to pull any shots. Boeri’s brother worked with Dick Bergeron from Quincy who I worked with for a while along with his boss Dave Rowell. He was continually chasing after Whitey and put a bug in his car which Whitey discovered. Boeri may be biased but he’s biased in the right direction from what I can see – telling what he believes to be the truth. Time will tell. I’ll have to see how he reports on these hearings. Thanks again for the inside information. I didn’t know DEA Boeri and Reporter Boeri were brothers.