Black Mass: The Irish Mob, the Boston FBI, and a Devil's Deal (56 page)

News articles:
Several
Boston Globe
and
Boston Herald
accounts of the murder trials of Thomas Sperrazza and Myles J. Connor, Jr. from 1979 to 1985.

Main sources:
The sworn testimony at the Wolf hearings of Stephen Flemmi, August 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28, and September 1, 2, and 15, 1998; retired FBI agent John Morris, April 21, 1998; Paul Rico, January 13, 1998; and FBI agent James P. Darcy, Jr., September 28 and 29, 1998; Wolf, “Memorandum and Order.”

For information on the history of the Mafia in the Boston area, we relied on our book
The Underboss.
For information on the handling of criminal informants, we drew mainly on the FBI’s
MIOG;
background interviews with Justice Department officials; David Marc Kleinman, “Out of the Shadows and into the Files: Who Should Control Informants?”; 1998 interviews with retired FBI agent Robert Fitzpatrick; and Gary Marx,
Undercover: Police Surveillance in America.
Sanford J. Ungar,
FBI: An Uncensored Look Behind the Walls,
provides a useful overview of FBI history and was the source for examples of agents’ dirty tricks. Also helpful was Robert Sherrill et al.,
Investigating the FBI.

We also drew on John Connolly’s 1998 interviews with WBZ-AM Radio and WRKO-AM Radio. On February 12, 1999, we sent a letter to Jack Kerner of Melotone Vending Inc. requesting an interview. He neither answered the letter nor returned several telephone calls we made.

We drew on FBI reports about meetings with Bulger and Flemmi during the 1970s, including but not limited to reports we obtained and records released during the Wolf hearings as exhibits 30, 40, 41, and 68.

It is interesting to note that even though the reporting of crimes by informants is regarded as a central principle of the informant guidelines, Boston was not alone in construing that provision narrowly. In practice, FBI field offices interpreted the requirement as covering only actual arrests or indictments of an informant; the field offices rarely, if ever, notified headquarters about an informant’s “suspected” criminal activity.

Judge Wolf emphasized the FBI’s autonomy in deciding to authorize criminal activity by an informant: “In 1977, the Levi Memorandum expressly treated the issue of authorization as solely within the province of the FBI” (“Memorandum and Order,” p. 124). Wolf also stressed that reporting an informant’s unauthorized crime was of paramount importance, but that in Boston this requirement was “regularly ignored with regard to Bulger and Flemmi” (p. 125). In Boston, ruled Wolf, “the
Guidelines
were ignored at the outset” (p. 128). Overall, ruled Wolf, “with regard to Flemmi and Bulger, the requirements of the
Guidelines
were either ignored or treated as a bureaucratic nuisance. . . . The evidence also indicates that FBI Headquarters did not effectively supervise the implementation of the
Guidelines
” (pp. 129-30).

In his factual findings, Wolf ruled that Rico had leaked to Flemmi the pending indictments against him, a fact that Flemmi himself had admitted in his own sworn testimony.

Of the Melotone incident, Judge Wolf ruled that “Connolly intimidated executives of National Melotone from pursuing their complaint that Bulger and Flemmi were extorting the vending machine company’s customers” (p. 17). Wolf wrote in his findings of fact:

Main sources:
The sworn testimony at the Wolf hearings of Stephen Flemmi, August 20, 25, and 28, and September 1 and 2, 1998; John Morris, April 21, 22, and 24, 1998; retired FBI agent Nicholas Gianturco, January 15 and April 20, 1998; Wolf, “Memorandum and Order.”

Interviews:
Anthony P. Ciulla, January 2000; a number of background interviews conducted in connection with our
Boston Globe
articles about Bulger in 1988 and 1998; transcripts of conversations recorded by the FBI in 1981 at 98 Prince Street, Boston.

We drew on FBI reports about meetings with Bulger and Flemmi during the late 1970s, including but not limited to reports we obtained and records released during the Wolf hearings as exhibits 5, 30, 35, 41, 60, 65-68, 70, 71, and 78. For information on the bookmaker Chico Krantz, we relied on government filings and
Globe
articles
.

We also drew on our 1988 interview with Jeremiah T. O’Sullivan and O’Sullivan’s 1997 statement to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility that he had not known Bulger and Flemmi were informants for the FBI during the race-fixing investigation. It is interesting to note that Judge Wolf found that O’Sullivan’s position was false: “Morris and Connolly told O’Sullivan that Flemmi and Bulger were FBI informants” (“Memorandum and Order,” p. 140). Wolf also noted that the meeting between the agents and O’Sullivan “violated FBI policy” (p. 141). Moreover, the judge ruled that Morris’s subsequent report to headquarters explaining why Bulger had not been indicted—that no prosecutable case had been developed—“was not true. Rather, Bulger and Flemmi were not prosecuted in the race-fix case because Connolly, Morris and O’Sullivan decided that their value as informants outweighed the importance of prosecuting them” (pp. 142-43).

Main sources:
The sworn testimony at the Wolf hearings of Stephen Flemmi, August 20, 25, and 26, 1998; and John Morris, April 21, 22, 23, 27, 29, and 30, 1998; a March 1981 affidavit filed by Massachusetts State Police trooper Rick Fraelick to obtain court permission for electronic surveillance; the surveillance logs prepared by state police troopers observing the Lancaster Street garage in the spring of 1980; John Connolly’s 1998 interviews with WBZ-AM Radio, WRKO-AM Radio, and the
Boston Globe.

We drew on FBI reports about meetings with Bulger and Flemmi during the early 1980s, including but not limited to reports we obtained and records released during the Wolf hearings as exhibits 1-10, 50, 51, 63, 64, 69, 72-74, 78, 82, 87-89, 223, and 231.

We also drew on interviews with retired Massachusetts State Police Lieutenant Colonel John O’Donovan and retired detective Robert Long, as well as a number of our own background interviews conducted in connection with our 1988 and 1998 articles about Bulger and the FBI.

Court records:
The sworn testimony at the Wolf hearing of John Morris, April 21, 22, 23, 27, and 30, 1998; Stephen Flemmi, August 20, 25, and 26, 1998; and retired FBI agent Lawrence Sarhatt, January 7, 1998.

Interviews:
On the Lancaster Street garage investigation and dealings with the FBI, retired Massachusetts State Police detective Robert Long, retired Massachusetts State Police Lieutenant Colonel John O’Donovan, and a brief interview with Sarhatt; extensive background interviews with Massachusetts State Police detectives and a Suffolk County prosecutor for
Boston Globe
articles in 1988 on the Bulger brothers.

FBI records:
Documents from the Wolf hearings included exhibits 1-10, 50, 51, 62-64, 69, 72-74, 82, 87, 88, and 231.

News articles: Globe
articles in July 1981 about a senate budget amendment affecting the Criminal Intelligence Division of the Massachusetts State Police.

Police records:
1981 affidavit submitted by the Massachusetts State Police to get court approval for electronic bugging of James Bulger and Stephen Flemmi.

Court records:
Transcripts from the daily log of conversations inside Mafia headquarters at 98 Prince Street from January to May 1981; 1995 court affidavit by FBI agent Edward Quinn on 98 Prince Street tapes about the activities of James Bulger and Stephen Flemmi; the sworn testimony at the Wolf hearings of Stephen Flemmi, August 20, 25, and 27, 1998.

News articles:
Several
Boston Globe
and
Boston Herald
articles about the Bennett brothers murders in 1967, 1968, and 1985;
Globe
articles in 1986 about challenges by defendant Gennaro Angiulo to the racketeering statute.

Books:
O’Neill and Lehr,
The Underboss.

FBI records:
Documents released at the Wolf hearings as exhibits 50, 51, and 73 about John Connolly’s reports on dealings by James Bulger and Stephen Flemmi with Mafia leaders at 98 Prince Street.

Police records:
1981 affidavit submitted by the Massachusetts State Police to get court approval for electronic bugging of James Bulger and Stephen Flemmi.

Main sources:
The sworn testimony at the Wolf hearings of Stephen Flemmi, August 20, 25, and 26, 1998; John Morris, April 21, 22, 23, 27, 29, and 30, 1998; retired FBI agent Jim Ring, June 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, and 22, and September 18 and 22, 1998; FBI agent John Newton, May 22, June 2, 1998; Nick Gianturco, January 15 and 20, and April 20, 1998; Theresa Stanley, September 16, 1998; Debbie Morris, September 22, 1998; John Connolly’s 1998 interviews with WBZ-AM Radio, WRKO-AM Radio, the
Boston Globe,
and the
Boston Tab;
Wolf, “Memorandum and Order.”

We also drew on FBI reports about meetings with Bulger and Flemmi from 1980 through the spring of 1983; John Connolly’s divorce records, Norfolk County Probate Court, 82MO351-DI; 1998 interview by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility with Rebecca Morris; interviews with retired FBI supervisor Robert Fitzpatrick; and numerous background interviews we conducted in connection with our 1988 and 1998 stories about Bulger and the FBI.

Regarding the payoff Morris sought from Bulger, it is interesting to note that John Connolly, in 1998 media interviews, denied that he’d delivered any cash to Debbie Noseworthy. Judge Wolf ruled, however, that

Regarding the dinner parties, Wolf ruled:

Regarding the FBI’s failure to look at reports of Bulger and Flemmi’s criminality, Wolf ruled: “In 1979 and early 1980, the FBI received information from informants that Bulger and Flemmi were involved in other criminal activity, including illegal gambling and trafficking in cocaine. These allegations too were not investigated” (p. 144). Earlier the judge had noted that “the FBI neither investigated nor disclosed such information to any other law enforcement agency because Connolly and Morris were ‘very anxious’ to continue to receive the ‘valuable’ assistance of Bulger and Flemmi in the investigation of the Mafia to which Morris had by then dedicated every member of his Organized Crime Squad” (p. 143).

The judge also mentioned Connolly’s growing influence in the FBI office. He found that when other FBI agents “received reliable information about criminal activity in which Bulger and Flemmi were engaged, they regularly consulted Connolly and then did not pursue any investigation” (p. 194).

It is also worth noting that in his “justification memos” of late 1980 and early 1981, John Connolly cited a second instance of Bulger putatively saving the life of an FBI agent. The dynamic at work in the second example reflects the dynamic of the first episode involving agent Nick Gianturco. Once again, Connolly seems to take a nugget of information and polish it into Bulger hype. In the 1980 memo that Connolly was ordered to write to justify keeping Bulger as an FBI informant, Connolly recalled that in 1977 Bulger had told him of a plan to kill agent Billy Butchka. Butchka at the time was posing as a buyer of stolen paintings and jewelry from a burglary ring. Connolly wrote that Bulger, “on his own, was successful in preventing the prospective hit men from taking any action against Butchka.”

Just like Gianturco, Butchka today supports Connolly’s version of events up to a point. In a 1998 telephone interview, Butchka told us: “I will verify I was working undercover and that I did receive a call that someone was going to hit me, and later I was told it was attributed to one of John Connolly’s informants. This was basically all I knew about it.” Butchka said he was no longer able to recall the name of the agent who warned him or the names of the thieves he was told were after him.