Black Mass

by Dick Lehr

Back at the Globe, O’Neill shared his findings with the other reporters. Everyone was dumbstruck, and there was discussion about whether the information could run in the newspaper, whether it might spur underworld bloodshed. But before any decision about publication could be made, the reporters knew more work was required. They had only a single source. There are times when an unnamed but well-placed source is enough to go with a story, but a single source for this kind of explosive disclosure did not cut it. Morris’s information needed to be tested.

  In July, O’Neill and Cullen flew to Washington, D.C., to see William F. Weld. Weld had just resigned from his post as head of the Criminal Division at the Justice Department in a much-publicized policy dispute with Ed Meese, the attorney general. Over lunch, and on background, Weld was careful and cautious. He said he’d heard the rumors from agencies like the state police. He even said he’d thought the rumors were true. But he had no proof, and he did not give the two reporters anything they could use in their story.

  Then, during the last week of July, Lehr called Bob Fitzpatrick, a name he’d been given along the way. The New York native had joined the FBI in 1965. He’d worked in New Orleans, Memphis, Jackson, Mississippi, and Miami. He’d worked the Martin Luther King assassination. He’d worked several bombing cases involving the Ku Klux Klan. He’d taught at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. The now former agent had served as the FBI’s assistant special agent in charge of the Boston office from 1980 to 1987. During that time he’d been Morris’s boss and overseen the Organized Crime Squad. In 1988 he was working in Boston as a private investigator.

  Lehr drove to Fitzpatrick’s home in Rhode Island, and Fitzpatrick took him for a walk to a nearby beach. The day was muggy and overcast. The beach was empty. Far away in Atlanta, Democrats were nominating Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis at their convention.

  “What do you know?” Fitzpatrick asked abrasively.

  “We know.”

  Pacing in the sand, Fitzpatrick seemed edgy. Then he started, and for the next few hours he talked about Whitey Bulger and the FBI, about Connolly and Morris.

  “He became a fuckin’ liability,” Fitzpatrick said about Bulger. He said that during his tenure at the Boston office he’d had increasing concerns about the quality of Bulger’s information and about Bulger’s rise to the top as the biggest wiseguy in the city. “You can never have the top guy as an informant,” he said at one point, his voice rising in anger. “You have the top guy, he’s making policy, and then he owns you. He owns you!”

  It began to rain, and the interview moved into Lehr’s car and then back to Fitzpatrick’s house. The wide-ranging discourse became a primer of sorts about informant handling, the dangers and benefits of the bureau’s reliance on informants, a beachside course on informant dos and don’ts. He repeatedly voiced regret that what he saw as a major internal scandal had gone untreated. The few times Bulger was reviewed internally, the pro-Bulger forces prevailed.

  “The FBI is being compromised. That’s what pisses the shit out of me. I mean the FBI is being used.” The root of the problem, he said, came down to the most basic seduction facing any FBI handler of a longtime informant. Connolly, he said, had long before “overidentified with the guy he was supposed to be running, and the guy took him.” The agent, said Fitzpatrick, had “gone native.”

  TWO MONTHS later a four-part series about the Bulger brothers published in the Boston Globe included an installment devoted to what was described as the “special relationship” between Whitey Bulger and the FBI.

  In the hectic weeks prior to publication, Cullen and Globe photographer John Tlumacki, acting on a tip from a local cop, succeeded in taking fresh photographs of Whitey Bulger late one sunny afternoon in a city park near Neponset Circle in Dorchester. Bulger was walking Catherine Greig’s poodle, wearing his trademark sunglasses and baseball cap.

  By this time too the FBI was well aware of the Globe’s storyline and took a shot across the newspaper’s bow. Tom Daly, a veteran agent, called up Cullen one afternoon at the office. Daly acted miffed, wanting to know why Lehr had been trying to contact “Fat Tony” Ciulla, the former government witness he’d handled in the 1979 race-fixing case against Howie Winter. Then the conversation turned to Bulger. First off, Daly said that if he was ever asked, “this conversation never took place.” (True to form, a decade later Daly denied calling Cullen.) Daly also said he was calling as a “friend,” although Cullen barely knew him.

  Daly wanted to know where the Globe was headed with the Bulger story. First he denied that Bulger was an FBI informant. Then he said that he wanted to make sure Cullen understood what he and his colleagues were up against. He said Ciulla, who was now in the federal witness protection program, had a warning for the Globe: “Whitey is a dangerous guy. You don’t want to piss him off.”

  Daly said Ciulla had cautioned that Bulger would not tolerate anything written about him that either was untrue or caused his family any embarrassment. “The guy would never live with that,” said Daly about Bulger. “He wouldn’t think nothing of clipping you.”

  The intimidation tactic left Cullen briefly rattled. But by the next day the reporters and their editors had all agreed that Whitey Bulger did not get where he was by killing reporters. The story was seen as something that simply had to be published.

  The series ran in late September 1988, a few weeks after Bulger turned fifty-nine, and included unequivocal denials from FBI officials. In public remarks, Jim Ahearn, the top agent in Boston, exuded certitude. “That is absolutely untrue,” he declared. “We specifically deny that there has been special treatment of this individual.”

  Backstage, however, a scramble was under way to assess the fallout. “I read the article,” said Flemmi, and “I discussed it with Jim Bulger.” In early October they met at Morris’s condo. “I went there with John Connolly and Jim Bulger,” Flemmi said. It was too soon to wonder how the Globe got the story; their first worry was damage control. “He was upset about it,” said Flemmi of Bulger. “But I don’t believe he at that point in time said anything about who leaked the information. I don’t think he knew.”

  “It was brief,” continued Flemmi, the meeting marking the last time Bulger and Flemmi ever met with Morris face to face. The agents, recalled Flemmi, were “talking about distancing themselves from us.” But Flemmi also detected that Connolly wasn’t happy about this kind of talk and was under pressure. He was against a breakup. “John Connolly, he wanted us to hang in there, and we did,” said Flemmi.

  In fact, Morris and Connolly had already gone over the story and figured maybe they would all be okay. Even though the in-depth stories “left little imagination” regarding Bulger’s status, the Globe, noted Morris, had never used the I-word: informant. The article called the deal a “special relationship.” Working in their favor, the story was followed by the FBI’s public denials. Maybe, they thought, they could ride it out. Maybe their best asset was Bulger himself, and the myth that he was the ultimate stand-up guy. “Connolly and I both thought the informant would be okay because no one in the underworld would believe it,” said Morris, playing along once again to cover his tracks.

  In the weeks after the story their hunch proved correct. Flemmi and Bulger went to work calling the story a hoax. The FBI agents, meanwhile, took the underworld’s pulse. In late September, Sonny Mercurio passed along to Connolly that his associates were thinking the story was “bullshit.” Mercurio said Ferrara and J. R. Russo were talking about hidden agendas, deciding the newspaper story was actually a bid to embarrass Billy Bulger. The agents wondered if the Mafia’s quick dismissal was actually a reflection of the Mafia’s fear of Whitey. If the mafiosi believed Bulger was an FBI informant, then they would have to take action; they would probably have to get rid of Bulger. Maybe the Mafia didn’t want to believe.

  In October yet another government source indicated that the disclosure was not provoking undue concern. The source, who was actually passing along word of Bulger’s continued dr
ug profiteering, mentioned that Bulger and Flemmi, although still “very concerned about the newspaper article,” now believed they were “weathering the storm of present.” The two crime bosses, said the tipster, had taken to calling the story a lie planted by their enemies and other informants who were out to get them.

  It was the talk of the town for a while. By the end of October, however, the storm had passed. In short order, Connolly turned his attention to another important matter. He’d met her at the office nearly a decade before, and on November 5, 1988, Connolly walked down the aisle to marry Elizabeth L. Moore. The crowd watching the happy couple included many of Connolly’s pals from the office, especially from the old Organized Crime Squad, among them Nick Gianturco, Jack Cloherty, and Ed Quinn. The affair was joyous, and John Connolly had begun to entertain thoughts of retiring. But even if he stuck around, despite the troubling publicity about the FBI’s Bulger deal, the coast now seemed awfully clear.

  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 th
e 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.