The trial of James “Whitey” Bulger has drawn a graying cast of characters from the gangster’s old turf in South Boston to Moakley federal courthouse, but one figure has been conspicuously absent: his younger brother William.
A once-feared politician whose rise to power mirrored his brother’s descent into crime, William has told friends that the scrutiny the trial has brought to his family has been difficult for him. He has also complained to friends that he feels that he, too, is one of his brother’s victims, since he was forced out of his job as president of the University of Massachusetts amid questions about his relationship with Whitey.
Robert H. Quinn — a friend and former House speaker who entered the Legislature with Bulger in 1960 — speculated that the prospect of unwelcome press attention has kept William, 79, away from the trial, even as William’s daughter and another brother, John, have appeared on the wooden bench reserved for relatives....
Bulger’s absence from the trial does not mean he has cut off contact with Whitey. William has visited his brother multiple times in Plymouth County jail. When Whitey was captured in 2011, William also attended his arraignment, and the two exchanged smiles upon seeing one another, apparently for the first time since Whitey fled federal authorities and went into hiding in 1994.
Since the trial began, William has declined to speak to the news media, so his reasons for avoiding the courthouse are not known. No one answered the door this week at his home in South Boston or at his summer home in Mashpee....
Kind of rude to go to his homes, isn't that?
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Related: Political elite should shun Bill Bulger
Why? I don't see it happening with war criminals from their ranks.
Also see: Bulger Trial Testimony
"‘Whitey’ Bulger’s former partner to testify against him" by Shelley Murphy | Globe Staff, July 18, 2013
Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi said he packed his bags after a corrupt FBI agent warned him and his partner, James “Whitey” Bulger, to flee just before their 1995 racketeering indictment.
But Flemmi hung around Boston too long and was arrested, while Bulger disappeared for more than 16 years until his capture two years ago in Santa Monica, Calif.
On Thursday, the aging gangsters who allegedly ran a criminal enterprise that rivaled the Mafia while being protected by the FBI because they were informants, will come face to face for the first time in decades when Flemmi takes the stand at Bulger’s racketeering trial in US District Court in Boston....
“He is arguably the most critical witness in the case,” said Boston defense attorney Martin G. Weinberg. “He is the single witness who can either adopt or contradict Bulger’s claims that he was not guilty of certain murders and that he was not an informant.”
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In letters to a friend from jail last year that were shared with the Globe, Bulger said the two things he most wants to refute are that he was an informant and that he killed two women, who are among his 19 alleged victims. Flemmi is a key government witness on those points.
Flemmi, 79, is serving a life sentence for 10 murders and has implicated Bulger in all of them, claiming he watched as Bulger strangled Debra Davis and Deborah Hussey on separate occasions in the 1980s. He is also expected to offer jurors a firsthand account of the corrupt and cozy relationship he and Bulger shared with FBI agents and of leaked information he says prompted them to kill other informants.
“Flemmi was a major, major player, a very much feared guy,” said Boston attorney Anthony Cardinale, who was instrumental in exposing the corrupt relationship between Bulger and Flemmi and the FBI. “[Jurors] are going to be disgusted by him, but they are going to believe him. He’ll be a good witness because every meeting they had with the FBI he was there.”
********************
Cardinale said Flemmi also may have more credibility with jurors because, unlike other former Bulger associates, who participated in murders and are free today because of deals they cut with prosecutors, Flemmi will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
“The bottom line here is a guy who is going to say: ‘I’m not lying. . . . I will die in jail, this is the truth of what happened here,’ ’’ Cardinale said.
In 1997, Flemmi urged a judge to dismiss the racketeering case against him, claiming the FBI had given him and Bulger permission to commit crimes, with the caveat they not kill anyone, because they were informants against the bureau’s number one target, the Mafia.
US District Judge Mark L. Wolf refused to dismiss the case, but held yearlong hearings exposing the relationship between Bulger, Flemmi, and the FBI. The revelations and concerns that Flemmi would implicate them in new crimes prompted Flemmi’s former associates to cut plea deals. They implicated Bulger and Flemmi in unsolved slayings that led to a sweeping new indictment in 2000, the one Bulger is facing at trial.
Flemmi pleaded guilty in 2003 to 10 murders and admitted his role in 10 others, in a deal that spared him the death penalty for slayings in Oklahoma and Florida. Since then, he has testified in criminal and civil trials.
Flemmi was recruited as an FBI informant in 1964, then closed in 1969 when he was a fugitive facing charges that he planted a car bomb that wounded a Boston lawyer. When the charges were dismissed in 1974 because a witness recanted, Flemmi returned to Boston and teamed up with Bulger and other members of the Winter Hill Gang.
In prior testimony, Flemmi said he and Bulger were kindred spirits, physical fitness buffs who liked to work out, rarely drank alcohol, and were well read.
Flemmi said Bulger was already an FBI informant in 1975 when he sent Flemmi to meet his handler, agent John J. Connolly Jr., marking the beginning of 15-year relationship in which all three regularly met to exchange information. Flemmi claimed that Connolly became like another member of the gang and pocketed between $235,000 and $250,000 in payoffs from him and Bulger.
Bulger’s lawyers told jurors during opening statements last month that Connolly fabricated Bulger’s hefty informant file to cover up the fact that he was routinely meeting Bulger to leak information to him and collect cash....
It's not like the FBI has never done such things before.
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Related:
"In their first encounter in 18 years, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi greeted James “Whitey” Bulger with an expletive after taking the stand in US District Court and describing his former partner as an FBI informant who gave information to law enforcement “hundreds of times’’ during their shared criminal careers. Flemmi is a key witness in Bulger’s racketeering trial, and on Thursday prosecutors got straight to the crux of his testimony: his partnership with Bulger and their relationship with the FBI."
Also see: Flemmi recounts Bulger’s savage ways
UPDATE:
"Bulger’s lawyer attacks Flemmi’s testimony; Tries to discredit him on woman’s killing" by Shelley Murphy and Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, July 22, 2013
James “Whitey” Bulger’s lawyer launched into a blistering cross-examination Monday of Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, attempting to undermine the credibility of the man who was once Bulger’s partner in crime and is now a pivotal witness against him by focusing on Flemmi’s sordid relationship with a young woman who was slain.
With just 15 minutes to start the cross-examination, lawyer Hank Brennan painted Flemmi as a perverted liar, saying it was Flemmi, not Bulger, who strangled 26-year-old Deborah Hussey in 1985.
Flemmi grudgingly admitted he raised Hussey like a daughter and then had sex with her, yet insisted he passively watched as Bulger strangled her.
Oooh.
Hussey was a toddler when Flemmi moved in with her mother, Marion. The girl called him Daddy as he raised her along with three children he had with her mother....
I've heard enough.
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Sorry, I no longer read Cullen.
Related(?):
"Questions as alleged Bulger victim Rakes found dead" by Shelley Murphy and Kevin Cullen | Globe Staff, July 18, 2013
A man who had waited decades to testify against James “Whitey” Bulger for allegedly stealing ownership of his South Boston liquor store was found dead Wednesday in Lincoln in what people familiar with the investigation are calling a suspicious death.
While an autopsy found no trauma to the body of Stephen “Stippo” Rakes, 59, authorities believe that he may have died elsewhere and that his body was dumped near a popular walking trail off Mill Street, where it was found, say several people familiar with the investigation.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Lincoln police Chief Kevin Mooney said Thursday that they have yet to determine the cause of Rakes’s death and are awaiting toxicology results, which generally take several weeks to complete.
“I can assure you my ex-husband did not commit suicide,” Rakes’s former wife, Julie Dammers, said during a brief telephone interview Thursday, responding to reports that he was despondent after being told by prosecutors earlier this week that they no longer planned to call him to testify against Bulger....
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"FBI brass had met in D.C. to talk about Bulger" by Shelley Murphy and Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, July 15, 2013
Top FBI supervisors held a meeting at the bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., in May 1982 to decide what to do after the killing of a cooperating witness who had implicated James “Whitey” Bulger and his partner in an Oklahoma murder, according to testimony in Bulger’s racketeering trial in federal court Monday.
Retired FBI agent Gerald J. Montanari told jurors that FBI agents from Boston, Miami, and Oklahoma met with supervisors to discuss “concerns that two high-level informants were suspects” in the Oklahoma murder of businessman Roger Wheeler. Moreover, retired FBI agent H. Paul Rico, who had still been working undercover for the bureau in a high-profile investigation, was also involved, the cooperating witness told authorities.
The meeting came two weeks after Bulger allegedly gunned down the witness, Edward “Brian” Halloran and Michael Donahue, after learning that Halloran had been giving the FBI information about the Oklahoma murder. Donahue was an innocent bystander who was giving Halloran a ride home.
Montanari testified Monday that he wanted the meeting “to bring the supervisors in Washington up to date” with his concerns that Bulger, a top informant in Boston, had just killed Halloran.
But even after Montanari raised his concerns, the FBI continued to use the gangster and his partner, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi as top-echelon informants, according to Montanari’s testimony Monday.
Literally getting away with murder -- well, until the FBI double-crosses you.
“It was recommended that informants remain open in the Boston Division until substantiated information is received indicating that they should be closed,” Robert Fitzpatrick, an assistant special agent in charge in Boston, wrote to his supervisor after the meeting on May 25, 1982.
The Washington meeting was attended by top supervisors including Sean McWeeney, who was in charge of the bureau’s organized crime section....
Also Monday, Martorano’s former girlfriend testified that she received money from Bulger’s crew while she and Martorano were living in Florida while he was a fugitive.
Patricia (Lytle) Carlson, 52, originally from Somerville, said she was 18 when she fled in the 1970s with Martorano, 20 years her senior. She said she initially thought they were going on vacation, though she stayed with him during his 16 years in hiding, and had a son with him....
Nice love story.
During cross-examination by Bulger’s lawyer, Hank Brennan, Carlson admitted that she helped Martorano while he was a fugitive, and lied to a grand jury in 1995, yet never faced any charges, unlike Bulger’s girlfriend, Catherine Greig, who is serving eight years in prison for helping him evade capture for 16 years.
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Also see:
Jurors see FBI files describing Bulger as informant
Bulger lawyer wonders why FBI agents should be believed
Good point.
"Former FBI supervisor takes stand in Bulger trial" by Shelley Murphy and Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, June 27, 2013
After days of sitting meekly at his federal racketeering trial, James “Whitey” Bulger erupted in anger Thursday as an FBI supervisor he had once plied with cash bribes and cases of wine told jurors that the gangster had given information in a case involving his associates.
“You’re a (expletive) liar,’’ Bulger, 83, snarled as he glared at his longtime nemesis, John Morris, who seemed nervous and uncomfortable at times as he sat in the witness stand just a few feet away.
Bulger’s outburst escaped the attention of most of the people in the courtroom, including the judge....
The rare display of emotion by Bulger, who has barely glanced at most witnesses, came on the 12th day of testimony at his trial as he faced Morris for the first time since learning he was one of the Boston Globe’s sources for a 1988 Spotlight series that revealed Bulger was an FBI informant.
And yet he fled in 1994 or 1995 (what's up with the imprecision there, anyway)?
Morris, now 67 and testifying under a grant of immunity, admitted that he took bribes totaling $7,000, cases of wine, and other gifts from Bulger and his partner, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, and met them for social dinners, including once when Bulger’s politician brother, William, made a brief appearance. He admitted leaking information to the gangsters and their FBI handler that likely led to several murders.
But....
But what?
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"Ex-FBI supervisor insists Bulger was an informant; Also admits to lies, taking mobster’s bribes" by Shelley Murphy and Milton J. Valencia | Globe Staff, June 28, 2013
A former FBI supervisor admitted Friday that he lied on FBI reports, shared “purely social” dinners with James “Whitey” Bulger, and took bribes from the gangster, but he rejected defense arguments that Bulger was never an informant.
And out goes his testimony.
During his second day on the stand at Bulger’s racketeering trial in US District Court in Boston, John Morris, 67, appeared combative at times as a defense lawyer suggested Bulger never told the FBI anything useful, while paying Morris and other agents for confidential information.
“The truth is . . . Mr. Bulger was buying information, he wasn’t selling it,” said Henry Brennan, one of Bulger’s lawyers....
And the FBI lied about it.
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In the past I would have linked all the Globe articles covering the trial; however, in the interests of time anything I missed you can find here. I've already acquitted Whitey because he was enabled and protected by the government. Case closed.
