Yesterday I wrote about Whitey’s one way to freedom. It is not through being acquitted before Judge Stearns in Boston of all the murder charges. That would help but it doesn’t spring him because the southern states of Florida and Oklahoma are waiting to try him and fry him for murder. His one way is to convince the jury that Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremiah O’Sullivan gave him immunity for all his crimes in return for being an informant for the FBI. If he had the federal immunity, he not only gets off on the federal murder charges but the states will be unable to prosecute him.
J.W. Carney and Whitey are going for the whole ball of wax. They know that 90% is not enough, it has to be an outright win. That’s why Carney is taking such a dogged approach to this case, probably more so than any other case he handled. He has to take a two tiered approach. spread doubt about Whitey’s involvement in as many murders as he can and convince the jury Whitey had immunity.
He probably knows he can convince a jury that Whitey was not involved in all 19 murders. (I know the burden is not on the defense to establish anything but in these gangster type cases reality suggests that despite the legal fictions the gangster must convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt he wasn’t involved.) He also knows that the more the jury doubts the government case, the greater the chance it will sign on to all of Whitey’s case, immunity being the big part.
We’ve discussed the first five murders that Whitey is alleged to have committed. These were all committed by Martorano (and his mysterious friend/relative) without Whitey having either a gun or firing a shot. It’s likely no jury will convict Whitey of those especially after getting a taste of Murderman Martorano’s act. We’ll go into the others later on, but on some of them it will be harder for a jury to acquit Whitey, not that it won’t. Carney has to go after each case and make the jury think that government’s evidence on each one is weak, that’s why he needs the time not only to go through the volumes of documents he received but also to go out and do his own investigation to undermine the government’s case.
All these crimes are of ancient origin so doing this won’t be easy but to carry off his planned escape to freedom for Whitey, this has to be done. The more the jury shuts its eyes to the government’s pitch, the greater Carney’s chances of pulling a rabbit out of the hat. That’s why the government is pushing for trial and Carney is delaying.
The rabbit is convincing the jury that even though Whitey may be guilty of some of the murders he was given immunity for these actions by AUSA O’Sullivan. As you can tell, the fewer the number of murders the jury is going to nail on Whitey, the easier it will be for them to accept the immunity argument. If the jury found he committed only one or two, they’d buy into the immunity. If it found 15 or 16, it would be reluctant to do this.
According to the Herald the prosecutors have scoffed at the suggestion that Whitey had immunity. The prosecutors responded last Friday that “O’Sullivan himself testified under oath before Congress he never extended immunity to either James Bulger or Steven Flemmi.” That’s true, in so far as it goes. What the prosecutors are not saying is that O’Sullivan also said things that contradicted that statement before the same Congressional committee.
O’Sullivan died at age 66 so he is not available. His testimony before the Congressional committee was confusing. I don’t think the prosecution team should be relying on it that much. Carney will be able to show that most of it was internally self-contradictory. Without going too much into those contradictions now, O’Sullivan said the only evidence he had against Whitey and Stevie was that they cut up the money in the Race Fixing case, the case in which he decided not to indict them. The evidence produced by the committee showed he had evidence that linked them to all parts of the scheme rather than just splitting the money.
For now lets just say that J.W. Carney and Hank Brennan, Whitey’s lawyers, have enough evidence to show to a jury that what O’Sullivan said to the committee is unreliable and self-serving. He made lots of statements that he ended up taking back or modifying under questioning. The big question that the committee members kept asking: “how is it you knew Whitey and Stevie were murderers and you had plenty of evidence to show they were involved in race fixing and you knew that they were two of the seven leaders of the Winter Hill gang and you indicted all the other leaders except them?” O’Sullivan had no answer to the question that was not changed or contradicted.
A jury will say, that’s fine, O’Sullivan denies giving them immunity and we should not believe him, but what evidence is there that he gave them immunity. In other words, Carney and company have to give the jury something to hang its hat on. It can’t use Agent Morris. He is a professional liar and has already said he did not know why they were working with the FBI as informants. That leaves Whitey, who will testify to this. A jury will want more than Whitey’s testimony. Will they get more?
The answer is, “of course.” It will have evidence from an FBI agent who will testify about a meeting that occurred in a hotel in the late 1970s that was set up at the request of O’Sullivan. He will say at that meeting O’Sullivan told Whitey in exchange for his being a top echelon informant and betraying his associates, he will be immune from prosecution. I’ll go on with this tomorrow.
1. I don’t know if I still have Connolly’s memoranda and appeals. I doubt it. A few years ago I threw out almost everything in my file cabinets. You could probably easily get the briefs by writing Wyshak or Connolly’s lawyers in Florida. I don’t have lexis/nexis. I’m sure they’re available there. 2. Carr, Dershowitz and Wyshak may have “the power”, but they don’t have “credibility”. Howie Carr is a chronic character assassin who delights in peoples’ suffering; when the news was announced that Sal DiMasi was convicted Carr said on his radio show, “This is the happiest day of my life!” Carr has neither conscience nor convictions. I’m convinced he’s a “conservative” because that’s where the money is on “talk radio.” Dershowitz called Judge Paul Mahoney a “thug” and “henchman” and William Bulger “the Godfather” of the Winter Hill Gang— William Bulger had never been convicted of even a misdemeanor, nor had Mahoney. Wyshak and his cohorts in the DOJ (a)cut deals with serial killers, (b) set serial killers, Salemme, Martorano, Weeks and Nee, free and (c) unconscionably limited serial killers’ testimony: Salemme didn’t have to testify about the Mafia; Martorano didn’t have to testify about his brother James, a made man in the Mafia.-Wyshak and his colleagues put known perjurers on the stand (Salemme in Boston; Flemmi in Miami); Wyshak and his colleagues tried a man twice for the same crime he was acuitted of in Boston. I don’t hold Wyshak, Carr and Dershowitz up as pillars of the community; they’re “credibility” is non-existent in my mind.
3. Carr’s books are littered with lies; Black Mass is a total fabrication, and that can be proved beyond cavil. Painting a man in the blackest light possible is not “reporting.”; it’s the work of novelists, fiction writers. You won’t find one word in Black Mass about the fact that Connolly was tried twice by federal prosecutors for the same crime. Not a peep about violations of constitutional rights, double jeopardy, expirations of statute of limitations, etc. Not a word about Connolly being convicted of only one offense during his 23 years as an FBI agent. At best, Black Mass is a work of historical fiction. I know I’m Mr. Nobody, on the one hand.On the other hand I hold the highest title in this country: I’m an American citizen; I’m not a supplicant; I have an independent mind and God-given free speech rights. I hope to continue exercising those rights. I know we are polar opposites on some issues. I thank you for allowing me to air my opposing views on your blog.
Black Mass was written in 2000; Connolly’s trial was in 2002. As I said, I found Black Mass to be accurate in most respects if understood that the source of some of it comes from two disgruntled FBI agents Morris and Fitzpatrick as filtered through the eyes of the Boston Globe which never had much love for Southie.
I have no problem at all with you airing your views. Some of them as are unpopular as mine. I didn’t say Carr, Dershowitz or Wyshak were more credible than you, I say they have more credibility than you in the public sphere. I disagree with you when you say they have no credibiity but only power; it is because they have power that they have credibility. Carr has a huge audience of conservative who he influences with his attacks on people like probation officers. people who live in housing projects and other people who have worked in the public sector.
In my post today where I begin to talk about Billy Bulger. I recognize that those who have demonized him have more credibility than I with the general public but I will try to set out the facts as I see them and let them decide for themselves.
You’re views, as well as those of others who write civilly and with facts, will be welcome here.
You are probably right. I’m not an organizer. Never have been. Never will be. I’m more a lone wolf. But I have sent letters and books to everyone I know from the governor of Florida to Congress to federal justices to former FBI agents; I’ve petitioned everyone I know on behalf of John Connolly for a redress of my grievances, and his grievances, obviously. I also sent materials to the Phoenix (Silverglate still contributes to it) and to all the local newspapers, even to the Machester Union Leader. (2.) Who has his appeals? I know his trial lawyer Manuel Casabielle has his post-trial motions to Judge Blake: those were excellent and mention the statute of limitations, ineffective assistance of counsel, inapplicability of the “murder by gun” statute, etc. Casabielle, an excellent trial lawyer, does not do appeals. His two appellate lawyers are the former FBI agent named McDonald? who is assisting pro-bono, and the court appointed lawyer in Florida whose name escapes me at this moment. I have seen some of the motions and appellate briefs and they seemed excellent and ironclad to me. I wrote John Connolly to that effect, while at the same time noting I was retired from the law and could not “practice” law. Retirment does not mean you give up your free speech rights. I hope to be issuing a second edition of my book “Character Assassins: Carr, Dershowitz, Mudd: Who’ll Live in Infamy?” in 2013, where I’ll correct the errors in the first 2012 edition, fortify it with new materials, and add a few chapters, one of which will be on Double Jeopardy and another exposing Black Mass as a fabrication. CONCLUSION: I agree with your focus on Florida. I hope others organize and take the lead on that. The full story of what happened in Massachusetts still has to be told. In my opinion, federal prosecutors (Wyshak,especially;) state police (Foley); biased mendacious media types (Carr, Lehr); and biased academics (Dershowitz) all played an underhanded role in singling out one man for persecution. Dershowitz added to the Zeitgeist by writing an article in Boston Magazine accusing U.Mass. President William Bulger of being the “godfather” of the Winter Hill gang. Scurrillous reporting like that added to Wyshak’s fervid zealotry. Subconsiously or not, they all saw the persecution of Connolly as a way to “get” or “get even” with the former long-serving, powerful politically conservative Senate President William Bulger, the arch enemy of the Boston Globe, the archenemy of liberalism. Federal prosecutor’s Durham opening statement where he made the Freudian slip of saying “William Bulger” instead of James, and Fred Wyshak’s statement to a reporter when asked in Miami what was Connolly’s mistake, Wyshak said, “He got too close to the Bulgers.” We heard him say that. We’re still searching for the tape to confirm it.
All in all, I think it helps to shine sunlight on all of it.
I didn’t say you were not an organizer. I said the only way Connolly is to get our of prison is for people like you who want to help him is to organize and work out a plan. No one person can accomplish what an organized group will be able to do. It was when the people got the right to organize that America became the great country that it is. It was the unions in the private sector that gave the working people a decent living. In the Fifties and Sixties when wages were rising and our great middle class came to the fore, unions represented thirty-three percent of the private work force. The collateral effect of them was that the other private employers had to keep up with the unions gains to keep the unions out of their businesses. Now that unions in private industry represent only 5% of the work force wages have stagnated and fallen. It is only through organizing that favorable results can be obtained.
If you have any of the legal paperwork relating to Connolly I would like to see it. How can you say Connolly is getting good legal representation when he has a public defense lawyer and a retired FBI agent representing him. I don’t see it. Guys who retire from other jobs and become lawyers aren’t really good at appellate work – they lack the breath of experience. I would go careful in trying to take on too much. Black Mass is a pretty good book in many respects although it does have a slant from the Morris/Fitzpatrick viewpoint. You don’t want to sound like Ma Rogers who said her grandson Mattie was the only one in step when the Marine officers paraded by.
Looking for others to organize is what everyone else is doing. Someone has to take the lead. That Connolly is still in prison and so little is heard about it speaks loudly as to the ineffectiveness of those helping him. He’s even confused as to what he thinks is important. He was reported to have thought that Whitey saying he did not tip him off to flee would help him. He should know no one will believe Whitey. He is now going to come back and testify for Whitey. Wouldn’t that be something if Whitey got off and he remained in prison? What has Whitey ever done for Connolly? Nothing that I can see. Connolly was no match for Whitey and Whitey used him and apparently is still using him.
One thing you have to keep in mind, Howie Carr, Alan Dershowitz, Fred Wyshak and others you attack will always have more credibility than you. Also, you talk about the arch enemy of liberalism. I thought that was Howie Carr. He is the darling of the conservative movement in this area as far as I can tell whenever I happen to catch his show or read his columns. That is one of the problems you will have when you attack him and at the same time suggest you are attacking liberalism. I’m sure you’d find Billy Bulger who is still a Democrat a lot more liberal than Howie Carr who from all I gather is a Republican.
As I see it, Connolly needs help and is not getting it. If people were interested in helping him they would organize. They would not paint with too wide a brush and concentrate on that one matter until they ultimately attained success. Of course we all have free speech, but that does not mean we are free from the ramifications of exercising that right.
I agree “noise” has to be made, an uproar has to be made. Connolly doesn’t need a fundraiser. He doesn’t need a new lawyer. He needs an honest jurist. (Apparently few and far between in Florida, as they were few and far between in Massachusetts during the St. Pat’s Parade case.) He also needs an honest investigative reporter (fewer still in Florida and Massachusetts) to hammer home the point that Connolly was tried twice by Federal prosecutors for the same offense (first in Boston in 2002, then in Miami in 2008); that his conviction in Florida was a sham. The scam must be publicly exposed. Also, Dick Lehr’s book Black Mass must be exposed as a fabrication and Dick Lehr as a liar. One example, if you go to page 340 of Black Mass (2012) Lehr writes that the Boston jury in 2002 agreed with the prosecutors that Connolly was a a “gangster” planted inside the FBI. In fact, we all know the Boston jury acquitted Connolly of all charges relating to murder and acquitted him of all charges that he took any money or anything of value. He was convicted of one charge during his 23 years as an FBI agent: transmitting a case of wine from Bulger to his supervisor Morris with an envelope concealed inside it, which envelope had $1000 in it. Hardly evidence of being “a gangster” inside the FBI. Here’s what Lehr wrote: “It had come down to this: John Connolly was a gangster, according to the prosecution. That’s what the (Oct 11, 2000) indictment came down to when all the legal jargon was peeled away. The agent had never been an agent; instead, Bulger had suceeded long ago in planting one of his own inside the FBI. A federal jury agreed.” As we all know, the federal jury did not agree. Lehr knows it did not agree. I call that lying.
You are right in what you say. Lehr and O’Neill were big cheerleaders against Connolly. You have to understand where they are coming from. First, they got their information for much of their book from FBI Agents John Morris and Fitzpatrick. Morris testified he considered O’Neill a friend. Both Morris and Fitzpatrick undermined their FBI oath by doing what J. Edgar Hoover would have considered the ultimate treachery, they revealed the identity of top echelon informants to newspaper reporters. Fitzpatrick has a book claiming he hated Connolly and tried to stop him. Fitzpatrick in his book actually reveals he has some reality problems and it is surprising to me the FBI had him as an agent.
So Lehr and company come from the Morris and Fitzpatrick school undermining Connolly and also with a sprinkling of anti-Billy Bulger feelings especially after Billy said nasty, and uncalled for, things about them in his book, “While The Music Lasts”. Billy made a big mistake in fighting the media; he should have known it would come back to bite him and it did, as we’ve seen.
I disagree with you as to Connolly’s need for new lawyers. He does. The lawyers around here are doing nothing; the lawyers in Florida as best I can tell are a public defender and an ex-FB I agent who does civil work. You only get good lawyers by paying them or appealing to their sense of justice and fairness. The St. Patrick case showed that the Massachusetts judiciary wanted to be politically correct siding with the gay community over the people from South Boston. Judges are always like that for the most part. That’s why gay marriage is approved in the liberal states and barred in the conservatives states. Frank DiMento told me something as a young lawyer which is as true today as when he said it to me: “the law is what the judges say it is.” If the Massachusetts Supreme Court decided that one could get triple damages if the person causing the injury came from South Boston, then that would be the law of Massachusetts.
A gutsy investigative reporter is Mike Taibbi from Rolling Stone. I’m sure there are others. In Boston you won’t find many because one has to be int the anti-Bulger camp although I noted that Venocchi at the Globe did take a shot a Stearns, which was surprising it got by the editor.
I was thinking earlier today that rather than lamenting Connolly’s fate, a more active effort should be undertaking by those supporting him. Not so much to suggest the judiciary is corrupt or lacking in honesty (the old honey vs vinegar argument) but to suggest they haven’t given the matter proper consideration. A group of people should come together under the heading “Justice Delayed” or something like that and should compose letters to people like Barry Schecter of the Innocence Project or even Silverglate in Boston, of that mind, to present a factual basis (based on transcripts from the trial or the papers filed on appeal, Do You Know Who has them?) to interest them. All you need are ten people dedicated to doing the hard work working together to point out the injustice then you will accomplish something. Organize – not for just an hour or a day – but for as long as it takes to right the wrong.
Your readers will be interested in this youtube video. Go to youtube and plug in these words in the search engine: “Nick Bogert WTVJ FBI Agt.” You’ll hear the Miami Judge, Judge Blake, say in open court not only that the “statute of limitations” had run on Connolly’s “murder by gun” count, but you’ll also hear him say that to be convicted of “murder by gun” you have to be “holding the murder weapon in your hand” at the time of the murder. The judge then erroneously says that because Connolly’s lawyers were late in raising these issues, he has “no jurisdiction” to free Connolly. Not heard is his opinion that he firmly believes Connolly will be quickly freed on appeal. Judge Blake effectively turned his back on the Constitution. Never mind all the other consitutional impediments—double jeopardy, supremacy clause, the overbreadth doctrine—the judge ignores what one court said was “universally understood”: that the statue of limitations can be raised at anytime. The corruption of our judicial systems and prosecutorial systems runs deep. Boston Globe reporter Shelley Murphy summed this all up by saying Connolly may be freed on a “technicality” on appeal. Our Constitutional freedoms are not technicalities. We all know the Federal Government in the person of Fred Wyshak tried Connolly a second time in a Miami Courtroom for a crime he was acquitted of in a trial by the federal government in a Boston courtroom: namely leaking information that led to Callahan’s murder. The Boston jury said, “not guilty”; the Miami jury said not guilty of first degree murder, not guilty of conspirary to commit murder, but guilty of murder by gun, a second degree murder count, added at the end of trial by Wyshak. The judge said the murderer had to have the murder weapon in his hand. Connolly, at the time of the murder, was 1,600 miles away vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard. In the Miami courtroom, the Constitution wasn’t merely violated, it was desecrated.
You may be pointing to some substantial reasons why Connolly should not be in prison but the bottom line is that he is still there. I talked to an FBI guy who was supporting him and asked him why they don’t push the appeals court for a written decision. He said they didn’t want to upset the court. That’s absurd. Unless the court is called to account, then it will let things stand like this forever.
I also understand Connolly is not being represented by anyone in Florida aside from an overworked public defender. Why isn’t there an effort going to get him a good lawyer? Have all those FBI guys who support him put up a few hundred dollars to help him out. There’s suppose to be a lot of people supporting him but nothing is happening for him. He should be strongly represented in federal court, in the highest court in Florida, before Eric Holder, the governor of Florida and in the press. Silence is killing him.
What you write is correct but what you must do is to get Connolly some high powered legal representation. Start fund raising for him. See how many people are willing to put their wallets behind fixing this injustice. You are right, for many reasons he should not be in prison but think of this, there are upwards of fifteen thousand FBI agents past and present and they have averted their eyes to one of their own being in jail. What does that tell you. If each one would give $100 then Connolly could be freed. The injustice is clear; that there are people who are interesting in doing something about it is not. Organize and make noise, that is the only way Connolly will be freed.