Judge Stearns will hold a hearing next Wednesday on the prosecutor’s motion to keep Whitey from presenting evidence that Jeremiah O’Sullivan, now deceased, but who was a AUSA head of the Organized Crime Task Force in the late 1970s gave him carte blanche immunity to commit as many murders as his heart desired. The Court of Appeals is considering whether Stearns should handle the case. I assume the delay in the decision means they will allow him to sit. For all practical purposes, Judge Stearns is as fair, impartial and wise judge as Whitey could hope for. I’ve suggested he step down but that’s not because I believe he won’t do as good a job as any other judge but it’s because there will always be a perception that he was not impartial which can be avoided. I think it is best that when Whitey is convicted everything be done so that we won’t have some type of Sacco and Vanzetti questions lingering on into the future.
I can’t be at the hearing because I will be in Florida. After all, the pitchers for our home team report on Tuesday and the full squad on Friday so someone has to be in Florida to welcome them. I’m not sure my failure to be a the hearing will cause me to miss anything. Each side will verbally present the argument already made in their submissions, Judge Stearns will take it under advisement.
The one curious thing I will miss is whether the prosecutors will argue that Whitey never gave any information to the FBI as they have in their submission. I would suggest Judge Stearns may want to know the prosecutors position on this issue. He would not look too good if he made his decision on the basis of the prosecutors assertion that Whitey did not provide information and then the evidence at the trial shows that there is no doubt he did that. In other words Judge Stearns has to know what is the prosecutor’s position. A judge denying defense counsel’s motion to suppress an admission made by a defendant who relies on the state saying the defendant made no admission isn’t going to be too happy if at trial the state seeks to introduce into evidence the defendant’s admissions.
Whitey’s lying to his brother that “I bought . . . information, I didn’t sell it . . . I never gave them . . . information. Nothin’ Nothin’” was merely for the edification of his brother so he can save face and proclaim he was not an informant. The prosecutor’s position since the first day of this matter is that Whitey gave information. He is supposed to have given information to save the life of a state trooper and FBI agent. There is a question as to its value, but it has constantly maintained that he did. Weeks said when he went through the files he saw Whitey was continually informing on his friends in South Boston. How now does the prosecution shift horses? And, if it’s not shifting horses, what was the purpose in putting that argument in its brief?
Whitey’s alleged denials of knowing his information was being reduced to writing also does not make much sense. He’s trying to suggest that the information which he didn’t give, but if he did, was not supposed to be reduced to writing. It’s like we go out with some friends for a night and talk about everything under the sun. We don’t expect our friends to go home and record what we said. Whitey wants us to believe that is the type of friendship he had with Connolly whereby he did not expect him to be reporting everything he told him.
What give lie to Whitey’s new tale is his interaction with other FBI agents. Why if he thinks his information is being held in confidence by Connolly is he meeting with FBI ASAC Fitzpatrick at his Quincy condo? Why does he have a sit down meeting with FBI SAC Sarhatt who is considering terminating his status as an informant? Why does he have another sitdown meeting with FBI agents who are investigating the Wheeler murder? If Connolly is his buddy and keeping things under his hat, then all these meetings are unnecessary.
The whole episode of Whitey denying he gave Connolly or any other FBI agent information is a lie. Whitey, like all gangsters, plays loose with the truth. It means nothing to them. That is the problem with the whole case, it involves gangsters who lie as easily as blinking their eyes. Solomon in all his wisdom couldn’t figure out where the truth lies among them. It is right that all of their testimony be viewed with a great deal of suspicion especially if they have received great benefits.
I think it was Newman Flanagan, the Suffolk DA, who used to argue to juries when he was an assistant DA that if a crime is committed in a jungle you have to go into the jungle to get the evidence. The prosecutors to get their evidence of what happened in the sordid underworld of these gangster have to go into it and do their best. Very often when that is done truth turns out to be the real victim.
Matt; We agree. We’ve decided this is the last year we do shoveling. We’re hiring young men to do it in the future.
Bill:
That’s wise. Like fighting, snow shovelling is a young man’s game.
Matt, that’s an excellent analysis! Things get murkier.
For information on an earlier post, please read Shelley Murphy’s Globe article of October 21, 2008 and also re-read Bob Hunt’s comments which were posteod on this site. (Bob Hunt excoriates Wyshak/Foley for cutting lenient deals with serial killers, for putting known “liars” on the stand and for leaking confidential information to Wyshak’s “lackeys” in the press.)Flemmi in Miami said Bulger said (again the double hearsay) that he was paying off four other FBI agents. All four denied it. I assume an investigation was done. None were indicted. Why? Wyshak didn’t believe Flemmi? or Wyshak couldn’t confirm what Flemmi said? You’d think that after investigating Flemmi’s claims and finding insufficient evidence to indict, Wyshak would have not gone ahead and used Flemmi as a witness. No such compunction restrains Wyshak.
Also regarding an earlier post, I wrote that John Connolly said in the Miami courtroom: “I never knowingly or intentionally did anything that would lead to someone’s murder.” But I found this quote, I think from Shelley Murphy, about what Connolly said in the Miami courtroom on December 4, 2008: “”I never have, and I never would, knowingly say anything that would cause harm to come to any human being.” He may have said both things: one addressing Mrs. Callahan; the other addressing the open courtroom. I remember him turning to Mrs. Callahan, offering condolences, and saying he had nothing to do with her husband’s murder. I also remember him using the phrase, “I never knowingly” or “I never intentionally.”
Again, Matt. Your post today was very insightful.
P.S. We got 29 inches of non-drifting snow in the driveway: a second day of shoveling commences at noon; there’ll be a few more!
Bill:
We’re never going to agree on Connolly but feel free to make your position known. Others in the Whitey matter have had the sole forum to tell their tales so in the interest of fairness all sides should have a right to be heard. After all, isn’t that why the first amendment to our Constitution, which is called the First Amendment, without which our Constitution would not have been written, gives the people in America the right to freely express their ideas and to feel free to believe in whatever they want. This right allows us to challenge the orthodoxy or the propaganda of others who may not have the purest motives in setting forth their ideas.
Sorry about the snow. Watch out with the shoveling. Remember the Globe columnist David Nyhan who died at age 64 shoveling snow. Nyhan was an athlete who was 6′ 4″ tall. Had no heart problems. Shoveling is bad for anyone over 60.
Mr. Connolly,
I am facinated with your blog on this trial. Over the past 2 yrs or so i have developed a daily need for “Whitey” updates and you assist in that meeting that craving. I thank you for that. The whole story is just “hollywood made” and i am anxious to see how the trial proceeds and also the movies that will be made about him. Anyway, i thought i would as you why you think it was the whitey did not get a “written” guarantee from o’sullivan or some recording? Surely he was known to think many steps in advance – so why not this time?
SJM:
Thanks for reading the blog. There will be Hollywood stories about Whitey and his group. The Departed which won the Academy Award as best picture was supposed to be about Whitey even though it was a remake of a 2002 Honk Kong film called Internal Affairs. What you will see on the big screen will be only the Hollywood version of the Whitey story, it won’t be the real thing. That’s because a lot that has been written about Whitey is one-sided by people who have put out versions of Whitey either with specific agendas or without proper analysis.
You’ll note if you read my blog today I sort of touched upon answering your question about why Whitey did not get a “written” guarantee. (I wrote the blog after reading your comment so it may have influenced me in writing it as other comments in the past have done.) Whitey never got a writing from the FBI saying he was an informant which everyone knows he was. The FBI could have destroyed all its files saying he was one and there’d be no proof at all that he was other than his word, even though now he denies he was one.
The O’Sullivan guarantee is a little different. I don’t believe that ever happened. I knew O’Sullivan and never saw him as the type who would find any reason to meet with a gangsters. Having been a prosecutor, I can’t see having a desire to meet with someone you’re going to have to try to gather evidence against. I tried to get evidence against Whitey but never had a desire to meet him. Also, O’Sullivan was a smart lawyer and a good prosecutor and he would know that he had no right to offer immunity to someone to murder anyone on his own behalf. If he was using an informant and sent him into a dangerous situation to do something for him and the informant ended up murdering someone then he might be able to help out the informant and see that he was not prosecuted. But no prosecutor would ever say to a gangster, “I’m giving immunity to you to murder anyone you want and if you’ve already murdered people I’m giving you immunity for those murders.” It’s really so far beyond belief that I’d expect Judge Stearns, or some other judge, to find that such a meeting never happened and to end the issue once and for all.
One other thing – Whitey did plan out things in advance. One thing I believe he didn’t figure in his planning was that Connolly was writing down everything he said. Whitey and Stevie must have believed much of their conversations were off the record and not to be attributed to them. They never got to see anything Connolly was writing about them.
dear author, enjoy your spring training and watching the sox get ready for 2013. i lived in pb county for 24 years. the braves and expos trained in west palm for many years. one year 1991 i think the red sox came over and broke the spring training record for people at a game 8,000 if i remember right. loved hearing the boston accents as people watched the game. in 1995 i was in living heritage village townhouses in west palm . jackie salamme was arrested the next development over in sandlewood. wherever i live and wherever i travel boston never seems that far away. one of the worlds great cities. your blog has helped clarify many of the questions that preople have had regarding whitey and his saga over the years. enjoy spring training. regards,
Norwood,
Thanks. I see you’ve been avoiding the New England weather for a long time. Smart man.