If the government is shit, you must acquit!
"Prosecution rests in Bulger trial; capture detailed; Attorney says defendant undecided about whether he’ll take the stand" by Shelley Murphy and Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, July 26, 2013
After 30 days of testimony, federal prosecutors rested their racketeering case against James “Whitey” Bulger on Friday, portraying him as a menacing crime boss and manipulative FBI informant who got away with murder for decades and raked in millions from drug dealing and extortion.
The government’s 63 witnesses offered jurors a startling view into a world where Bulger seemed omnipotent as he allegedly paid bribes to FBI agents, killed informants cooperating against him, shoved machine guns into the faces of drug dealers and businessmen, chained and interrogated men before shooting them in the head, and strangled women.
In some cases, according to his former associates, Bulger took naps after his killings, while they were left to bury the bodies and clean up his mess....
On Monday, Bulger’s lawyers will begin calling defense witnesses as they try to build upon a theme they have been pressing for the past six weeks: that Bulger was not an informant, that he did not kill the two young women who are among his 19 alleged victims, that even though he raked in millions from cocaine and marijuana dealing, he refused to sell heroin or angel dust. He was, they suggest, a gangster with principles.
Bulger, 83, has yet to decide whether he will take the stand, one of his lawyers, J.W. Carney Jr. told the judge Friday.
The defense plans to call 15 witnesses, beginning Monday morning, and the case could go to the jury by the end of the week.
Carney acknowledged the complexity of the case outside the courthouse Friday, telling reporters, “I didn’t realize or appreciate what an amazing cast of characters would be called during this trial. For me, professionally, it’s been fascinating.”
Bulger is charged in a sweeping federal racketeering indictment that alleges he participated in 19 murders in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as extortion, money laundering, and stockpiled weapons while overseeing a criminal organization that rivaled the Mafia.
The last prosecution witness called to the stand Friday was an FBI agent who was part of the team that captured Bulger on June 22, 2011, in Santa Monica, Calif., ending an international manhunt for the fugitive who had been on the run for more than 16 years.
FBI special agent Scott Garriola, assigned to the fugitive squad in the bureau’s Los Angeles office, said he showed the manager of the Princess Eugenia complex at 1012 Third St. mugshots of Bulger and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, after a tipster said they were living in a rent-controlled apartment as retirees, Charlie and Carol Gasko.
When the manager confirmed he was “100 percent’’ sure it was them, Garriola lured Bulger to the building’s garage by having the manager call and tell him his storage locker had been broken into.
As Bulger emerged from the garage elevator, he was surrounded by FBI agents and Los Angeles police.
“We asked him to get down on his knees,” Garriola said. “He swore at us a few times, told us he was not going to get down on the ground, there was grease on the ground.”
Bulger eventually complied and was handcuffed. After initially insisting he was Charles Gasko, according to Garriola, the gangster said, “You know who I am; I’m Whitey Bulger.”
Garriola said Bulger’s demeanor changed when the agent asked if he needed to call a SWAT team to get Greig out of the apartment. He said Bulger offered to tell her to surrender.
He signed his name on a consent form allowing them to search the apartment, saying, “This is the first time I’ve signed this name in a long time.”
The agent said Bulger showed agents where he had stashed 30 guns, more than $822,000 in cash, knives, and ammunition — much of it hidden inside holes he had cut into the walls and covered with plaster. Bulger said Greig had never handled any of the guns, and he hoped his cooperation would benefit her. She was sentenced to eight years in prison last year for helping him evade capture.
Jurors stared in awe as Garriola piled clear plastic bags stuffed with the cash on a table in front of US District Judge Denise Casper.
He identified each of the 30 guns — including a machine gun, a Ruger, and an M16 — and said most were loaded and all were functional when seized from Bulger’s apartment.
Garriola said he asked Bulger if he was planning a shootout. “He paused and then he told me, ‘No, because a stray bullet may hit someone.’ ”
As the case now shifts to the defense, Boston lawyer Anthony Cardinale said Bulger is almost guaranteed a conviction since his lawyers conceded during opening statements that he was a drug dealer.
“The only thing they apparently wanted to litigate is whether he was an informant, which is not even a crime in the case, and whether he was involved in the murder of the two women,” Cardinale said. “In what can only be called a reputation defense, they are trying to defend his reputation, and that’s not a legal defense.”
But Boston lawyer Harvey Silverglate said Bulger’s lawyers showed jurors that Bulger had a corrupt relationship with the Justice Department and the FBI, which enabled him to commit crimes.
“One of the most interesting themes is that the defense is defending somebody who was obviously engaged in God-awful conduct, but the prosecutors have the same problem,” said Silverglate, referring to the corrupt FBI agents who took money from Bulger and a federal prosecutor who shielded him from prosecution decades ago.
Silverglate said the trial is a disappointment because the judge refused to allow jurors to hear Bulger’s contention that he had been granted immunity from prosecution by a former top-ranking prosecutor, who is now dead.
Related: Judge Casper's Cover Up
“The real question is how far did the federal government go in encouraging and enabling [Bulger’s] conduct,” Silverglate said. “We don’t have an answer because the judge wouldn’t let us hear that evidence.”
--more--"
"‘Whitey’ Bulger defense targets the informant claim; Witness says he urged FBI to drop Bulger as an informant" by Shelley Murphy and Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, July 29, 2013
The first defense witness called in the racketeering trial of James “Whitey” Bulger testified Monday that he repeatedly urged the FBI to drop the gangster as an informant in the early 1980s but was overruled by higher-ups who believed he was providing valuable information against the Mafia.
And therefore the FBI is complicit in the murders.
Robert Fitzpatrick, who was second in command of the FBI’s Boston office, said he knew from his first meeting with Bulger in 1981 that his value was overrated. In testimony that kicked off the defense’s bid to undermine the contention Bulger was an informant, Fitzpatrick described an unsettling visit at the gangster’s Quincy condominium.
“I put my hand out to shake his hand, and he didn’t take it,” said Fitzpatrick....
The defense has set out to put the government on trial for protecting Bulger and his partner, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, from prosecution for decades while crediting them with providing information that helped decimate the New England Mafia....
This government should be on trial.
In 1982, the FBI’s use of Bulger and Flemmi as informants caused major dissension in the bureau when Winter Hill Gang associate Edward “Brian” Halloran began cooperating, Fitzpatrick said. Halloran had implicated Bulger and Flemmi in the 1981 slaying of Tulsa businessman Roger Wheeler, owner of World Jai Alai.
Fitzpatrick said he complained to William Weld, the US attorney, in May 1982, that Jeremiah O’Sullivan, a federal prosecutor who headed the New England Organized Crime Strike Force, refused to admit Halloran to the witness protection program despite warnings from other informants that his life was in danger because word of his cooperation had been leaked.
The warnings went unheeded, Fitzpatrick said, and two days later Halloran was gunned down on the South Boston Waterfront, along with Michael Donahue, who was giving him a ride home. Bulger is charged with the slayings. Two weeks after the killings, Fitzpatrick said, he complained during a meeting at FBI headquarters that Bulger and Flemmi should be closed as informants because they were possible murder suspects, but high-ranking officials seemed “ambivalent.”
Fitzpatrick said later he was told by John Glover, the FBI’s assistant director, to “shut up and not report it” when he accused James Greenleaf, then head of the FBI’s Boston office, of leaking grand jury information. Fitzpatrick said the FBI later retaliated against him, by trumping up charges that he filed false reports. He said he was demoted to line agent and resigned in 1986 because he felt “they were out to get me.”
That's what they do when you don't toe the line.
They betray you after you served with loyalty, government puke.
During aggressive cross-examination, Assistant US Attorney Brian T. Kelly attacked Fitzpatrick’s credibility, accusing him of making up stories and taking credit for the accomplishments of others....
Heck of a charge coming from this government.
--more--"
"Speculation on trying oft-mentioned Patrick Nee" by Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, July 30, 2013
The name of Patrick Nee, a self-described former criminal who wrote a book on mob life, has repeatedly surfaced in the James “Whitey” Bulger trial as a person involved in drug and gun crimes, someone who helped bury a body, and served as an accomplice to murder.
So why has Nee not been charged in those crimes? That question will be in the air this week as Bulger’s lawyers attempt to call Nee, once a well-known figure in Boston’s underworld, to testify in the gangster’s racketeering trial.
Nee has said through his lawyer that he will invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, even though Bulger’s lawyers say they will ask questions that will not implicate him. US District Court Judge Denise J. Casper is considering how to handle him as a witness....
Related: Bulger judge keeps strong crosscurrents in check
Nee is also set to be featured on “Saint Hoods,” a Discovery Channel reality show that will document three crews of Boston bookmakers.....
The show, set to air this week, will not be the first time that Nee’s history of crime has been made public. He talks about it in his book and in a promotional video....
Made a real $core of being a mob$ter, huh?
--more--"
Also see:
Flemmi paints Bulger as a pedophile at trial
Don’t believe hyperbole in the Bulger trial
Sunday Globe Special: Where is Whitey Bulger's Brother?
Not even the Globe can find him.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
Judge denies ‘Whitey’ Bulger’s sequester request
Will Whitey Bulger testify, or won’t he?
