This is a continuation of my last post on Naimovich. You’ll understand this best if you read that before continuing.on.
I asked three main questions at the end of that post. First, was Judge Wolf wrong when he said Naimovich was convicted on charges of corruption?
The truth is that in the same court as Judge Wolf sits Naimovich was acquitted of the corruption charges by a jury. As I said, once indicted a cop is on a downward spiral. 8 years after his death Naimovich’s name was still being wrongfully dragged through the mud. Wolf didn’t bother to check the records in his own courthouse. Correct answer ‘yes’.
I next asked would Flemmi disclose his longtime friend and informant when naming him wasn’t germane to his testimony. It turned out within a year of Flemmi’s testimony the identity of his source in the state police was discovered. It was a person identified as Eric, by Weeks and others, Richard Schneiderhan. He grew up with and admired Flemmi. He regularly received money for information. Correct answer ‘no’.
My third question was rhetorical. It should have been obvious that Flemmi’s source was still alive after Naimovich had died. The investigators never seemed to have put two and two together.
Aside from the questions, you’ll note that in the prior post referred to above I said I would explain why the Naimovich matter gives an important insight into the FBI and the length it would go to protect Whitey.
Naimovich’s investigation began with the FBI. The supervisor of Connolly’s organized crime unit and his buddy was James Ring. (Weeks, Whitey’s right hand man, testified Bulger told him he had corrupted Ring with gifts.) A plan was made to set him and Trooper Tom Foley up. Foley’s boss, Captain Maitoli, told him to show Naimovich certain reports he had written about Danny Forte described by Foley as a leg breaker. Up to that point Naimovich had nothing to do with that investigation.
A short time after that Ring confronted Foley telling him that a Mafia leader Vinny Ferrara had information that mirrored what Foley wrote. He was grilled on who else beside him had access to his reports since whoever did was a leak to the Mafia. Foley said it was only FBI agent Nick Gianturco (who later admitted taking gifts from Whitey) and Naimovich. Foley knew he didn’t release the information, Gianturco being an FBI agent was above suspicion so the leak had to be Naimovich. Supervisor Ring (Whitey referred to him as “Pipe”) nodded knowingly, leaned back and puffed on his pipe as Foley snapped at the bait.
Naimovich was targeted. Three months or so after investigating him Foley started to doubt his actions. He had found nothing to connect Naimovich to the leak to Vinny Ferrara. The long and short of it was he asked Mattioli to set up a meeting with Ring to discuss this.
Ring came to the state police office and met with Matioli for a half hour while Foley sat outside. He was then invited in. Ring told him that shortly after they sicked him on Naimovich they discovered the leak. It was a secretary in their office. They took care of that matter in-house so the FBI would not be embarrassed.
In the interim they had caught one of Naimovich’s informants, a bookie by the name of McIntyre who they squeezed. After the appropriate threats (you’ll go to jail forever. lose your house in Canton, lose your vacation home on the Cape. lose your Cadillac and money) he told them he had paid Naimovich some cash over the prior few years for information. Using McIntyre’s evidence they continued to go after Naimovich. As I said, after a jury heard it he was acquitted.
Ring, Gianturco and Connolly all close as bed bugs with Whitey let the state police chase after Naimovich for months after the basis for the pursuit had collapsed. It should be mentioned that the state troopers chasing Naimovich were supposed to be working on a wiretap I was doing chasing top organized crime people. The FBI again cleverly managed to adversely impact another state police investigation into organized crime.
There were three reasons why these FBI guys wanted to get Naimovich. First, Naimovich had been a thorn in the side of Whitey for years. Second, he was in the process at the time they went after him of bugging and wiretapping the leaders of two organized crime gambling groups, Abe Sarkis and Mel Berger. Finally, they gave cover to and took the heat off Flemmi’s real source in the state police, Eric. This allowed Flemmi years later to point the finger at Naimovich.
These FBI agents had no problem trying to send a state trooper away to prison on trumped up charges for up to twenty years to protect Whitey and Stevie Flemmi. I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised when you hear what Connolly said which I will tell you this Friday.