You have to understand certain things before deciding whether Whitey was an informant or not. One of those is the information that has come from convicted former FBI agent Robert Fitzpatrick. He was convicted of six counts of perjury based upon his testimony at the Whitey Bulger trial for the defense team. Two of his them were that he urged his superiors to drop Bulger as an informant and that Bugler personally told him he was not an informant.
Fitzpatrick also wrote a book which had parts that mirrored some of his testimony. So perhaps what he said can be taken with a grain of salt but as we’ve seen throughout the Bulger saga the prosecutors offered one witness after another with sordid criminal backgrounds who we were supposed to believe. When it comes down to it I’d accept the word of a convicted FBI agent over any of them. But really, what you have to look for in making those decisions is corroboration.
Fitzpatrick in my opinion engaged in high hyperbole rather than perjury. There does not seem to be a red line where the former trips over into the latter. Much depends on the animus of a prosecutor.
Which reminds me of the story once told about Daisy Donohue, the father of Roger Donohue, both of whom were superior court judges. Walking to lunch in Dedham Square during a jury trial over which he presided one of the jurors approached Daisy. He said: “I think we heard some perjury in the courtroom this morning.” Daisy smiled and replied: “where else would you hear it?” Legend also has it that he liked to give out basketball scores type sentences to defendants. After sending one poor chap to a very lengthy stay in prison the defendant said, “judge, I can never do that much time.” Daisy replied, “just try to do your best.”
Now where was I? I was talking about Fitzpatrick’s book. It is astounding for what I believe to be many inaccuracies in it. One small example. He writes that his interactions with Colonel John O’Donovan of the Massachusetts State Police (MSP) were “mostly on the phone” because MSP headquarters were in Framingham “often a messy drive from Boston” but he did see him at “the 1010 State Police building” and “I never recall seeing O’Donovan out of uniform.” I truly wonder if he ever met him.
O’Donovan was head of the MSP detectives. His worked out of 1010 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston and not Framingham. I had contact with pretty steadily over a dozen plus years. I never saw him in a uniform. Maybe there was another Colonel O’Donovan.
Almost every other page has misinterpretation of events. It’s like he knew a little about something and then spun it to the end he wanted to buttress his conclusions. One thing is clear, he had great hostility to Whitey and, for some strange reason his brother Billy..
There are things, though, that happened behind the FBI walls that have the aura of truth. He tells how one agent, Jim Knotts, told him Agent Connolly was “stealing” information from his informant reports and attributing it to Whitey. At Whitey’s trial other FBI agents testified suggesting the same thing.
Fitzpatrick said that Knotts told him, “if Connolly wasn’t stealing or embellishing reports he was he was downright making them up.” Knotts told him what Connolly attributed to information from Bulger as to who looted the Depositors Trust in Medford actually came from others . He said Connolly saying that Whitey’s information saved two agents lives was a fiction because according to Knotts their lives were never in danger.
Fitzpatrick wrote that other agents Matt Cronin and Jim Crawford “lead agents in the case” against the Boston Mafia debunked the idea Connolly was promoting that Whitey had given information against the Mafia. “They’d never seen evidence of any such thing and firmly believed it didn’t exist.” Hearing this Fitzpatrick arranged to meet with Whitey and before doing it he said “I reviewed his FBI in-house files and materials.” Despite claims from Agent Connolly and his supervisor John Morris that Whitey had provided a great deal of evidence about the Mafia and drugs, Fitzpatrick wrote that it “was nowhere to be found in any of the files, just as Agents Knotts, Cronin and Crawford had told me.”
HIs visit to Whitey occurred at Whitey’s condo in Quincy in an evening in March. As described by Fitzpatrick It seemed like quite a circus, or better put two guys standing in a UCF octagon trying to verbalize who was tougher. Fitzpatrick had it that Whitey pulled the “tough guy act” because Fitzpatrick “hadn’t earned his respect.” He went on “I didn’t have to earn anything from Bulger, though; he had to earn it from me.”
Talk about a gang that couldn’t shoot straight, his intent is to see if Whitey is an informant after already deciding Whitey was providing no information of worth, he goes to Whitey’s place rather than a neutral place, and there they engage in nothing more than a verbal arm wrestling contest. Fitzpatrick wrote he returned to the office where he wrote out a two page report noting Whitey’s “lack of cooperation and lack of performance.” That report somehow has disappeared.
Connolly taking information from other files and attributing it to Whitey was corroborated at Whitey’s trial by defense lawyers questioning the government’s witnesses in addition to the FBI agents. They showed exactly the same reports from Whitey’s files as were in others. Jeremiah O’Sullivan the head of the Federal Organize Crime Task Force who bugged the Mafia offices and gained the evidence to convict the Angiulo gang said Whitey’s information was not crucial to that operation. John Morris the FBI agent who supervised that electronic surveillance said that they had all the information to do the bug on Angiulo’s headquarters without Whitey’s information but he wanted to protect Whitey so he ordered the case agent to add his name to the affidavit.
If Connolly’s making stuff up or stealing it to put in Whitey’s informant file; if there is nothing of note that Fitzpatrick saw that Whitey provided; if stories of Whitey’s doings are lies; if the idea as expressed in Black Mass that Whitey was recruited to inform on the Mafia is nonsense, how can it be said Whitey was an informant? Was Whitey murdered because he was falsely portrayed?
You know that you are in hell when you live in a police state are not allowed to say it.
Wa-llahi! Who’s name (BOP) is on the paperwork that transferred JB to Hazelton? That’s the place to start. It may be that Bulger’s final transfer was the result of his threatening a female hack There’s paperwork on everything that happened. Probably, requires an FOI to get it.
The Billy is in eloquent dominion of essential truth seen clearly : Someone had a license to kill . Or that at least is the inference ; Jimmy believed he had Agency sanction .
He knew he had it .
Wanted to Roger and got Rogered .
There is a moral there .
Thank your Lucky ★ …. Boys and Boyos .
See …Janet … I like you. So you get to sit at the Table .
Try not to speak out of turn .
Janet :
Me .
Only way you will ever get there ; cut the nonsense chatter and be patient .
Again !!!
” John has been known to head out ”
THAT … Is a killer line .
Agency is Urgency ; Sanctioned
Of course , that is what I wonder . Was this a matter of Jimmy informing on the FBI or was he not effectively a type of Black Squad 007 .
What was it about his eyes that bothered Janet’s sexy young mafia guys ; as pewling a mob of teenage girl dismembering closet cases as seen in a while , that they wanted to wax him .
Were they Lasers or something .
If they were then the FBI realizes that they are not calling the shot .
They never were .
Do you believe you are alone in your Universe ?
John has been known to head out .
Janet : Get your head out of the John .
There is a moral there .
Jimmy ain’t talking ; and a lot who are are full of silly nonsense.
Whitey Bulger was properly carried and used as an Informant in the Top Echelon Informant Program in the late 1970s, throughout the 1980s to John Connolly’s retirement in 1990.
The honest FBI agents, framed by Wyshak and the Sterns Gang, are John Connolly, H. Paul Rico, Jim Ring, Fitzpatrick and the others.
The dishonest, corrupt FBI agent was John Morris who was withholding evidence until three weeks before John Connolly’s first trial and the Sterns Gang (Sterns, Durham, Wyshak) still used him.
The Sterns Gang, especially Wyshak used and released serial killers and serial perjurers and molded and composed their testimony shamefully.
Innocent men have been driven to suicide, heart attacks, bankruptcy, unlawfully prosecuted and persecuted by the Sterns Gang, the Boston Office and Wyshak. And the smug bastards sit there in high office in their three piece suits.
No one reads Three Billboards Outside Boston, as few have read our heralded books From Trial to the United States Supreme Court, and others by Connolly and Walkowski since.
The blind lead the blind, the corrupt lead the corrupt and they all give banquets for one other and high medals for their ABUSE OF POWER, constant, documented. And the leftist media, especially the Globe and New York Times, and much of Academia, is in on it . . . I think of all those law professors, law schools, judges, big law firm lawyers, who opposed us, in Lawyers’ Weekly, and in Courts and Agencies, during the Parade Case.
I see a worse band of corrupt public officials in prosecutors offices, especially Federal Prosecutors Offices, especially the Federal Prosecutors Office in Boston, since the Sterns Gang took control . . .they are assassins, character assassins, as there can be no worse form of character assassination than to falsely indict and falsely prosecute and persecute. And that is what we have proven they have done.
Read Three Billboards Outside Boston and for lighter, well not really, but lighter on the surface reading, read Spiritual Glue: The Tao Tightens Taut; A Christmas Carol; A Song of Joy”, by me, a short story, a storylet of about 20,000 words available this June, hopefully.
Open your God Given MInds to the Truth.
Pilot asked Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar, “We all have truths, are yours the same as mine?”
Some see through glasses darkly, through cataracts, they are blind physically, situationally, psychologically, or simply have vested interests, they keep them from accepting the simple facts and elemental truths.
Janet, thank you for your kind words. We must meet again and I will have documents for your review. And, I, am a strong supporter of my fellow FBI Special Agents, even those who testify about their respective beliefs that Connolly reviewed their files. Let’s meet up. Warm regards, Dick.
Why did the Boston Globe/WBUR pull their IRA/Whitey Bulger episode on their Last Seen podcast? It seems like it would have been a great opportunity to expand interest in this work of ahem independent journalism.
On the bright side (sarcasm), now that Bulger is dead Kurkjian can report made up conversations between Bulger and Connolly, though he never interviewed either man.
“To help his former boss, Connolly met with Bulger in early 1991. Connolly reminded him that there were true advantages for cooperating with the FBI — like the reward for the return of the artwork.”
(Bulger needed reminding about this?)
To Connolly’s surprise, Bulger told him that he had already tried to gain information on the identity of the thieves and the whereabouts of the paintings. But not for the reasons Connolly had thought. He wanted to know who pulled off the theft because they had not sought permission from Bulger, or paid him the tribute Bulger believed he was owed.”
https://www.wbur.org/lastseen/2018/10/31/bulger-gardner-museum-heist
To Connolly’s surprise??? Why would this be to the surprise of anyone?
To get to the origin of this story you have to go back to 2011 when Bulger was captured and Kurkjian wrote a story on the Gardner angle for the Globe:
“In addition, former FBI agent John Connolly, who handled Bulger as an FBI informant, has written in letters to a reporter that after leaving the agency’s Boston office in 1990, his former bosses asked him to approach Bulger about the Gardner crime. Connolly said that Bulger told him that he did not know who had engineered the theft or where the artwork had been taken.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/06/26/whitey-bulger-arrest-may-yield-clues-gardner-heist/qsLa4OllrVLYHoweleq8SL/story.html
So why does Connolly add in this bit about after he was retired. Why doesn’t he just say he asked him, and then explain what Bulger said, in this written record he made of this interview with Bulger?
In his book “Mast Thieves: Kurkjian wrote that: ”
John Connolly, who had handled Bulger as an informant, said that even though he was retired from the Bureau when the theft took place, he was asked by his old colleagues to see what he could find out from Bulger. This is wrong. Connolly was not retired.”
The Globe reported on more than one occasion that Connolly retired in December of 1990. In the newest iteration of the tale, by Kurkjian, the FBI has Connolly speaking the Bulger about the heist in January of 1991, almost immediately after he retired. Why is the FBI asking former agents to speak with Bulger?
Some might think it strange that the FBI did not speak to Bulger until the year following the Heist, and probably later. ( They might also think it strange that the FBI would ask a retired agent to do this job.) In “Last Seen Episode 7” an attorney for Myles Connor, Martin Leppo said “When the Gardner was hit, Myles became the No. 1 suspect. Did he orchestrate it? And so forth and so on. So that was number one.”
But in 1990 the Boston Globe quoted an FBI agent saying that they had not interviewed Myles Connor and this was backed up by Connor’s own attorney at the time Greg Collins. Collins was also quoted in the Globe that Myles Connor was not interviewed. Why wouldn’t they interview him for background? “Last Seen” incorrectly reports that Connor was in Lompoc prison at the time of the Heist, but he was not. He was in jail in Chicago awaiting sentencing. His sentencing was delayed three times, perhaps in hopes Connor would make a deal for the art or give them some information, but no offer was ever made and the judge gave Connor double what the prosecutor had requested, four months after the Heist, still in Illinois. After Houghton died, Connor claimed that Houghton came to see him in Lompoc and told him he took the paintings to get him out. Kurkjian recently added helpfully that Houghton was waiting because of “the intense manhunt.” But there was no intense manhunt. They didn’t interview any of the locals they started claiming were responsible in 2010. William Youngworth claimed, not very convincingly that he was interviewed by “agents” in MCI Cedar Junction a couple of days after Heist.
If Bulger was not an informant, why was there this trial within a trial of Bulger, this effort to establish that Bulger was a former member of their team? Whatever the reason, there was an extra measure of responsibility to ensure his safety from jailhouse justice and instead Bulger received the opposite of that.
Did “Last Seen” try to get Bulger’s take on how he was interviewed by actual or former FBI agents, for their for now scrapped Bulger/IRA episode, to corroborate Connolly’s claim? Gone is the opportunity to ever get Bulger’s answer to that question and others.
K J :
Incisive .
Thanks John.
Ditto KJ
Where to start regarding James “Whitey” Bulger and whether or not he was an FBI Informant. We have heard comments from Matt and Janet Uhlar, along with the names of FBI Agents who opined that the information attributed to Whitey Bulger was taken from other FBI Agents Informant files. First, Whitey Bulger was indeed an active FBI Informant. Over the years he furnished information that was accurate and independent of another FBI informants’ information. Stephen Flemmi was also an informant, developed by H. Paul Rico, back in the late fifties earlier 60’s. When FBI Agent Connolly was transferred from the New York Office to Boston, circa 1973, he was assigned to the OC Squad C-3. His objective/assignment was to develop top echelon informants to help decimate the New England Mafia. Prior to H. Paul Rico’s transfer to the Miami FBI Office, he introduced Stephen Flemmi to John Connolly. Connolly’s ability to ingratiated himself with a potential informant target was unparalleled. He had a special knack in developing top echelon informants. As a result, the relationship between Connolly and Flemmi progressed into a productive one. As to whether Bulger was an informant, the question can be answered by pointing out that on numerous occasions, Bulger, Flemmi and Connolly would meet together to discuss matters of interest relative to various criminal matters and/or activities of rival gangs to include the Mafia. In that regard, the rumors are not true regarding Bulger not being an informant, and the misrepresentations about Connolly taking information from other FBI Agents’ Informant files are also not true. The informant files are kept in a locked room and the only individuals authorized to review the files, other than the informant handler, are the SAC, ASAC, a Squad Supervisor. The only person other than the aforementioned, is the Agent assigned to the administration of the room where the files are stored. Janet Uhlar is correct in her assumption that someone in the government caused Bulger to be sent to Hazelton. Although the investigation is not complete as to who was responsible for the murder of Bulger, we will have to wait. You can rest assure that the people responsible will be ferreted out and the powers to be responsible for Bulger’s transferred will be interviewed. Let’s face it, no informant wants to be labeled as an informant for obvious reasons; it is understandable why Bulger did not want this label too. Lastly, the comments allegedly uttered by Matt Cronin and Jim Crawford, have no merit regarding any relationship to Connolly. They worked different criminal matters and the two had no contact with their respective investigations. Miss Despina “Desi” Sideropolos, the SAC’s secretary, is now retired as of December 31, 2018. She has spent almost 60 years as a dedicated FBI employee and we should grant her God Speed and a Happy and Healthy retirement. She deserves it. Any questions and/or comments? Be Kind!
Dick, I have the utmost respect for Desi Sideropolos and the testimony she gave at Bulger’s trial. It was striking. I’d suggest that you all get a copy of it, that of Robert Fitzpatrick, and that of the 4 former FBI agents who stated that Connolly was taking material from their informant files to create the “Bulger file”.
Dick, we’ve met, we spoke, and you made it clear that you’re devoted to the brotherhood of the FBI. You believe Connolly, no matter what — and, you told me that Paul Rico was a good agent who was set up. Hard to take anything you say about the “brotherhood” seriously.
Matt
How could Whitey be king of the hill in New England Organized crime (along with Steve Flemmi) for 25 plus years WITHOUT being an informant? You said it yourself he and Flemmi avoided having cases made against them as the FBI derailed other arms of the “Law”. Are you suggesting Flemmi was an informant and Bulger was not YET Bulger benefited because his partner in crime was an informant
Why is it CLEAR at the sun on a cloudless day at Fenway in june that Flemmi was an informant but not Bulger?
Flemmi admitted he was an Informant. He testified he had been one since the mid-sixties.
Connolly listed Whitey as an Informant in 1975. Whitey was never told an Informant file was set up on him. Connolly was engaged in a big pretense within the FBI that Whotey was providing him with information.which we know that at least some of it came from other files. The FBI assumed Whitey was an Informant so protected him like it would any other informant.
The real question is why did Connolly want to have him listed as an Informant if he wasn’t. Did it look good for his FBI standing; did he look up yo him as a buddy from Old Harbot; was Whitey’s generous with himl; was it his way of protecting Flemmi?
As to a final conclusion on Bulger being an Informant I am still working the evidence. Stay tuned.
Matt
Where the definitive PROOF that Whitey was not an informant? Just because Bulger says he wasn’t or didn’t know a file was created for him is not proof by any means
Right. Why would Connolly create a false Whitey Bulger file and risk his career his pension and possibly jail time?
Also why would Fitzpatrick have a meeting with Bulger if he wasn’t an informant. That makes no sense.
No. In best scenario Bulger was an informant who provided insignificant information. Heck Bulger may have agreed to be an informant and let Flemmi provide all the significant information
I don’t believe Bulger was murdered because he was an informant
Bulger agreed to the meeting with Fitzpatrick to see if Fitzpatrick was someone he could corrupt. He wasn’t.
It’s really very simple if you shake the myth: Bulger was murdered because the Feds wanted him dead. The prisoners at Hazelton with ties to the NE mafia were only too happy to carry out the execution, believing the lie of Bulger being an informant.
The questions should be: Why did the Feds want him dead? And, who came up with the plan to send him to Hazelton?
Bulger’s story goes way beyond the handful of corrupted employees of the FBI/DOJ/MA State Police/Boston Police et al.
If the” Bulger cult” continues to cling to the myth, they’ll never accept truth. That’s the nature of cults.
Bulger’s behavior was modified. The “monster” the cult claims he was, was created by the CIA. This is not a conspiracy theory — it’s documented for anyone that can pull themselves away from the fiction of Lehr, O’Neill, Cullen, Murphy, Boeri, and, of course Howie!
Read the 1977 US Senate Hearing.
Bulger’s darker side was manipulated. Bulger became a high-profile test subject of the CIA’s experimentation. Bulger needed to die before someone with the ability to force this fact to the forefront of America’s consciousness interviewed him.
The cult can’t seem to see the forest for the trees.
Matt
I am confused. Do you think Bulger was an informant or not? It seems to me, and I could be way off the mark, that you have flip flopped on Whitey being an informant. Some of your posts sound convincing that he was an informant and then other posts sound convincing that he wasnt an informant
Playing devils advocate (by no means an easy task for the faint hearted) how about a post as to who GAINS and LOSES from Whitey being an informant. The same for Whitey NOT being an informant. With that said, it is reasonable (and my suspicion) that at times Bulger was an informant and at other times not an informant.
Also you are jumping to conclusion that whitey was murdered because he was supposedly an informant. Wasnt there another back story about Fred Weichel being convicted of murder and Whitey failing to clear the record?
Too bad we cant directly ask John Conolly or John Morris or Steve Flemmi and get a direct honest truthful answer
Those within the mafia that Bulger considered friends didn’t believe he was an informant. Whoever set Bulger up to be murdered in Hazelton knew that some younger guys from the New England mafia were there, and these younger guys, like so many other New Englanders, bought the phony Boston Globe story created by John Morris. They, believing the lie of Bulger being an informant, considered themselves ‘good soldiers’ in taking him out. They were wrong.
Like Hitler (and Trump?) — Johns Morris and Connolly, those within the Boston US Attorney’s Office, and the Boston media knew that if you told a big lie long enough it would become truth. (Jim Bulger often wrote to me, “a lie unchallenged becomes the truth,” as he struggled within himself to call his former friends Martorano, Weeks, Flemmi, and Nee out on their lies about him to save their own necks.) The ironic thing is that Bulger realized too late that the code he lived by not to rat, only helped those that earned their freedom by telling tales about him.
Jim Bulger was a lot of things — but he wasn’t an informant. Those younger mafia guys need to find Steve Flemmi — a confessed FBI informant who handed the mafia over to O’Sullivan (Bulger didn’t draw that map — he had never been in that room. Flemmi drew it.)
Flemmi, under his new alias in witness protection, lives comfortably off the millions of dollars returned to him by Freddie. Flemmi laughs at the foolishness of the young mafia guys in Hazelton. It was so easy to get these guys to kill Bulger. So easy. Do you think Freddie played a role in their incarceration???
As for Bob Fitzpatrick — he’s a good man. He disrupted Freddie’s script and therefore his reputation needed to be destroyed so no one would consider what he revealed in his testimony. (Same with Ralph DeMasi).
Don’t really remember Fitzpatrick saying he wrote a two page report about Bulger’s “lack of cooperation and lack of performance,” or that this particular report disappeared. What I do remember is that Fitzpatrick created a memo of his visit with Bulger and gave it to SAC Sarhart. Sarhart put it in his office safe.
Miss Desi, the secretary for Sarhart, testified that Fitzpatrick did indeed create this memo. His testimony about Bulger not being an informant was corroborated by Miss Desi.
Some one knew that the young NE mafia guys at Hazelton would quickly kill Bulger. I have my suspicions of who this was — and of why he needed Bulger dead.
The Whitey Bulger myth is over. Now it’s time to tell the story of Jim Bulger….
HB is right. Some of the Feds are bad. If Boston cops ( Acera and Robinson) went to jail for filing false affidavits in drug cases so too should those who filed fake info for FISA warrants. The Steele dossier was never verified. It was worthless gossip. It could never form the grounds for a warrant. It was comparable to filing an article in Mad Magazine by an anonymous author and using it as the basis to obtain a warrant. Citizen’s Constitutional rights were violated. People have to be held accountable. 2. The public has a right to know who withheld exonerating info from Connolly’s defense. The prosecutors have a duty to disclose such information. Was it only Wyshak or did Mueller engage in this illegality? Were there others? Was Whitey transferred on the orders of any Federal officials? Did they know he would be at risk? Do they bear some culpability in his demise?
Shocking isn’t it that that there are FBI agents who fabricate and even lie in court under oath. And some people think Trump is paranoid.