Black Mass: The Irish Mob, the Boston FBI, and a Devil's Deal (41 page)

BY THIS time Connolly and the others—including an unraveling John Morris—had honed their skills at deflecting trouble. They’d been doing it for thirteen years, getting better all the time. Now, to his enemies list of state troopers, drug agents, and cops whom he claimed hated him, Connolly added reporters. He couldn’t understand any of it. What could there be not to like about an agent armed with colorful FBI stories about bringing the Mafia to its knees? To rebut the Bulger talk, he sought out a private meeting at one point with the top editor at the
Globe.
Connolly made his pitch. How could any of these stories be true, he explained to the editor, Jack Driscoll,
when he’d never even talked to Whitey Bulger.

Connolly and the others had a strategy to weather the scrutiny of this new press coverage: just keep zealously working the street. They were confident that they could extinguish any brushfire that came their way, including another that was smoldering from within.

This one originated from Bill Weld. Before he left the Justice Department, he’d started getting telephone calls from a woman from Boston with intriguing insights about Bulger and the FBI. The first call came January 6, 1988, and the woman talked to one of Weld’s assistants. She was “obviously scared and calling from a pay phone,” and she promised to call again to give “information on who Stevie Flemmi and Whitey Bulger have on their payroll, i.e., Boston police and federal agents.” Weld distributed a memo to a few high-ranking officials at Justice, and he scribbled in the margin next to the reference to Bulger, “OK, this checks out—maybe not a nut.” Weld’s office not infrequently got calls from people complaining about the CIA monitoring the fillings in their teeth, but Weld felt this wasn’t one of those. The next call came on January 20, and the caller named “Agent John Connolly—FBI” and a Boston police official as the two who “sell wiretap information” to Bulger and Flemmi. Weld again scribbled in the margins: “I know all this! So this is on the up and up.” The calls kept coming, on January 27, February 3, February 10, and they included mouthwatering lines like, “I have information on the Brian Halloran killing. It was done by Whitey Bulger and Pat Nee.”

Despite his exclamatory jottings, Weld didn’t know for certain if the tips were true, but he did think they should be taken seriously and pursued. “I had a sense that there might be a weak link there between Mr. Bulger and Mr. Connolly.”

Weld resigned his post on March 29, but his former assistants continued to take the calls, on August 15 and October 27, during which the caller said that a second FBI agent, John Newton, also disclosed government secrets to Bulger. The tipster turned out to be a woman named Sue Murray, fronting for her husband, Joe Murray, the gangster who trafficked in drugs and stolen guns for the IRA and sometimes did business with Bulger. Murray, imprisoned since his arrest in 1983, was looking to trade information for leniency.

Prior to resigning, Weld shipped “all the stuff up to Boston for further investigation.” But the referral landed right in the laps of Connolly’s friends and the longtime gatekeepers of the Bulger deal, people like Jeremiah T. O’Sullivan and Connolly’s new best friend, Jim Ahearn. The Boston SAC oversaw an internal inquiry of Connolly that proceeded slowly throughout 1988 and into 1989. It was not to be handled by outsiders or impartial agents from another office, but by Connolly’s associates. It was as if Connolly had been asked to look into the allegations himself.

Ahearn made it clear that he thought the information was baseless. In a letter to FBI director William Sessions, he complained that this latest questioning about Connolly’s conduct was “but one of a lengthy series of allegations over the years.” Ahearn assured his boss he would not jump to any conclusions, but in the next breath he did just that. He wrote Sessions: “While I am not prejudging the current investigation, all others have proven groundless and [agent] Connolly is held in extremely high esteem by both the Criminal Investigation Division and myself for his accomplishments.” The writing was on the wall.

Joe Murray was brought to Boston in June from a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, for an interview with two agents from the Boston office. Ed Clark and Ed Quinn sat across from Murray that day. Both agents were friendly with Connolly, especially Quinn, who for years worked closely with Connolly and just a few months earlier was raising a glass in a toast to John at his wedding.

Murray told the agents he’d heard Bulger and Connolly traveled to the Cape together and shared an apartment in the Brighton section of Boston. He said a number of Bulger’s associates, like Pat Nee, knew Bulger and Connolly were close and that Bulger had Connolly on a string. “Connolly was no problem,” Nee indicated. He said “Bulger and Flemmi are responsible for the death of Bucky Barrett in 1983” and summarized what he knew about the twenty-four hours leading up to Barrett’s disappearance.

The Boston FBI agents nodded and took notes, but never asked any follow-up questions—about Connolly, about Bulger’s role in the Halloran and Barrett murders, or about anything Murray had to offer about the crime boss.

Clark later described his assignment that day as if he were a mere stenographer, not a seasoned FBI interviewer. In his view, he was there to just listen to what Murray had to say and pass it on to somebody else who would evaluate it and decide whether any further action was warranted. Clark said he even thought to himself that Murray would “make a terrific informant.” But instead of being cultivated, Murray was returned to his cell in Danbury. Clark said he was not asked to follow up on anything Murray said.

Meanwhile, Jim Ahearn and his deputies took Clark’s typewritten report and forwarded it to headquarters, urging the top brass to slam the door shut on any further challenge to Connolly. The cover letter dismissed Murray’s comments as “rumor and conjecture” and concluded: “Boston recommends that this inquiry be closed, and no administration taken.”

It was done. The paperwork was buried—like Halloran’s and Barrett’s corpses—and the negative Connolly talk was rerouted into FBI oblivion. Yet another mere inconvenience.

CONNOLLY, Bulger, and Flemmi seemed to have a growing sense of entitlement: the city was theirs. Thus, Bulger was absolutely put out one day at Logan Airport when he and his girlfriend, Theresa Stanley, were detained as they were boarding a Delta Airlines flight to Montreal.

It was around 7:10 P.M. Using cash, Theresa had paid for two first-class tickets. Bulger, dressed in a black jogging suit, was carrying a black leather garment bag. Inside the bag was at least $50,000 in cash he was attempting to smuggle out of the country. But as the bag passed through the X-ray machine a security guard noticed several unidentified lumps. Zipping open the bag, the guard spotted bricks of cash—all $100 bills. Believing the amount was well over $10,000—federal law required the reporting of cash amounting to more than $10,000—the guard told Bulger and Stanley to step to the side; she would have to advise the state police.

“Fuck you,” Bulger told the female security guard.

Bulger picked up the bag of cash and began walking quickly away. He handed the parcel to another man, saying, “Here, Kevin, take this.” Kevin Weeks hurried out the door, climbed into a black Chevy Blazer, and raced off. Bulger stuck his foot in a revolving airport door to slow a second guard who had taken up the chase after the bag of money.

Bulger was arguing with guards when plainclothes trooper Billy Johnson of the Massachusetts State Police’s airport barracks arrived. No one recognized Bulger, who was sneering at the guards, Theresa at his side.

“Hey, you, get over here,” Johnson shouted.

Johnson identified himself, and one of the guards began to explain the situation, but Bulger interrupted and pointed at the guard. “Shut the fuck up,” he said. “You’re a liar.” Johnson demanded identification, and Bulger produced a license: “James J. Bulger, 17 Twomey Court, South Boston.”

The guard tried a second time to talk to Johnson, but Bulger again interrupted. “Shut the fuck up.”

Johnson turned to Bulger. “You shut up.” He pinned Bulger back against the wall, one of the few men who probably ever put his hands on the gangster. “One more word out of you, and I’m going to lock you up.”

Bulger didn’t back down. “That how you treat citizens?” he snapped. “That how you treat citizens?” Bulger shouted. Johnson ignored him. The trooper seized $9,923 in cash that Theresa Stanley was carrying. Customs officials were notified, but the amount was just below the reporting requirement. Eventually, after conferring with other agents, Johnson realized that he had no reason to detain Bulger. Maybe he could have tied him up on a disorderly conduct charge, but he decided that would be a “cheap pinch.” He let Bulger and Stanley go. Bulger stormed off, hailed a cab, and was gone.

Life uninterrupted. Flemmi was now often taking a break from the crime beat—indulging in a passion for parachuting by attending army reunions and joining the International Association of Airborne Veterans. He began traveling worldwide to jump from planes—to South Africa, East Germany, Thailand, Israel. He renewed friendships with other Korean War vets. Meanwhile, John Connolly’s world was also humming along—a new marriage, a promotion to supervisor of a drug task force, and the prospect of retirement. Following the celebrated Mafia induction ceremony taping in late 1989, FBI director William Sessions traveled to Boston to personally congratulate the Boston agents, singling out Connolly for his handling of informants. Connolly was moving up and out—literally. In 1990, he sold his Thomas Park home and moved briefly into a South Boston townhouse, a six-unit complex where Bulger and Weeks also owned units. But Connolly now had his eye on the North Shore suburbs, and he soon purchased land in Lynnfield and built a large, two-story red-brick home.

Even though Jim Ring had instructed Connolly to quit meeting his informants inside his home, the get-togethers continued, if simply relocated to agent John Newton’s house, or Nick Gianturco’s. Gianturco once invited two star FBI agents from the New York office in town for a few days. Joseph D. Pistone, retired from the bureau, had written a book,
Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia.
The book, published in 1987, became a bestseller and eventually was made into a movie starring Al Pacino. Joining Pistone was Jules Bonavolonta, a veteran Mafia fighter who eventually would write his own book too. Gianturco cooked up the meal, and Connolly proudly introduced Bulger and Flemmi to the out-of-town guests. “It was obvious,” Bonavolonta recalled, that “Bulger and Steve were friends of Connolly’s.” Connolly began talking about how someday he’d like to write a book about his FBI triumphs.

Morris was now persona non grata. He was busy defending himself in 1989 against an internal inquiry into leaks to the
Globe
regarding the 75 State Street investigation. He refused to take a polygraph and was scrambling to lie his way out of trouble, writing up false reports and denying to the FBI brass that he was a leak, and all the while Connolly was leading the charge for his former friend’s scalp. “He was suspicious of me,” Morris said about Connolly. But Morris would survive the internal scrutiny with a censure and fourteen days of unpaid leave.

In back rooms at their liquor mart and the variety store next door, Bulger and Flemmi conducted the dirty work of their underworld empire, hauling in recalcitrant debtors for meetings, perhaps pulling out a weapon to illustrate a point they were trying to make about the price of tardiness. Out front, at holiday times, FBI agents showed up to pick up their Christmas cheer. “Dick Baker, Friend of John Connolly,” was the note scribbled onto a receipt for the $205 in booze that agent Baker bought in 1989.

It seemed to Connolly and the others that everything was going their way. Deriding any criticism was Jim Ahearn. Indeed, soon after he came to Boston, he ordered a deputy to review Bulger’s status to quell the nagging backbiting at the office. But the outcome—a hearty recommendation to keep Bulger—was hardly a surprise. The review consisted largely of a review of Connolly’s files and talking to Connolly himself. Ahearn wrote to the FBI director on February 10, 1989, boasting that Whitey Bulger was “regarded as the most important Organized Crime informant for many years.” (The memo did not even mention Flemmi by name, even though Stevie was the one with the best Mafia access.) Connolly, wrote Ahearn, has an “outstanding reputation as an informant developer and his accomplishments are well-known throughout Massachusetts law enforcement.”

The SAC’s memo to Sessions had a specific purpose: to protest the fact that the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Boston Police Department were conducting yet another drug probe of Bulger. Ahearn had only the day before learned of the joint investigation; worse still, the probe had been under way since 1987. Ahearn was beside himself—angry about being left out of the loop, and incensed that the second-class DEA would dare treat the Federal Bureau of Investigation that way.

But the decision to leave out the FBI had been carefully considered. “I was quite happy to have the FBI out of that investigation,” said Bill Weld, the chief of the Criminal Division in the Justice Department at the time. “I thought there might very well be a problem somewhere in the FBI. I thought it was at a low level, the John Connolly level. I thought it was historical, but that’s still a problem.”