Black Mass
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Beatty, Jack. The Rascal King. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1992.
Bulger, William M. While the Music Lasts: My Life in Politics. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
Charns, Alexander. Cloak and Gavel: FBI Wiretaps, Bugs, Informers, and the Supreme Court. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
Gillespie, C. Bancroft. Illustrated History of South Boston. South Boston: Inquirer Publishing Co., 1901.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.
Halberstam, David. The Fifties. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993.
Kee, Robert. Ireland: A History. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1982.
Kessler, Ronald. The FBI. New York: Pocket Books, 1993.
Lukas, J. Anthony. Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.
Maas, Peter. The Valachi Papers. New York: Putnam’s, 1968.
MacDonald, Michael Patrick. All Souls: A Family Story from Southie. 1999. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999.
Marx, Gary T. Undercover: Police Surveillance in America. Berkeley, Calif.: Twentieth Century Fund, 1988.
Neff, James. Mobbed Up: Jackie Presser’s High-Wire Life in the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the FBI. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989.
O’Connor, Thomas H. South Boston: My Home Town. Boston: Quinlan Press, 1988.
———. Bible, Brahmins, and Bosses: A Short History of Boston. Boston: Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, 1991.
———. Boston Catholics: A History of the Church and Its People. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998.
O’Neill, Gerard, and Dick Lehr. The Underboss: The Rise and Fall of a Mafia Family. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.
Pileggi, Nicholas. Wiseguy. New York: Pocket Books, 1987.
Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell. Images of America: South Boston. Dover, N.H.: Aradia Publishing, 1996.
Shannon, William V. The American Irish: A Political and Social Portrait. 2nd ed. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. First published in 1963.
Sherrill, Robert, et al. Investigating the FBI. Edited by Pat Watters and Stephen Gillers. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1973.
Sullivan, William C., with Bill Brown. The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.
Ungar, Sanford J. FBI: An Uncensored Look Behind the Walls. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown & Co., 1975.
ARTICLES
Kleinman, David Marc. “Out of the Shadows and into the Files: Who Should Control Informants?” Police 3, no. 6 (November 1980).
Lee, Gregory D. (FBI special agent). “Drug Informants.” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 62, no. 9 (September 1993).
Mount, Harry A., Jr. (FBI special agent). “Criminal Informants: An Administrator’s Dream or Nightmare.” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 59, no. 12 (December 1990).
Reese, James T. (FBI special agent, Behavioral Sciences Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, Va.). “Motivations of Criminal Informants.” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 49, no. 5 (May 1980).
“Symposium: Perspectives on Organized Crime.” Rutgers Law Journal 16, nos. 3 and 4 (Spring-Summer 1985).
Finally, we would like to point out that a number of myths about Whitey Bulger and the Boston FBI have been in circulation locally for a long time; many of them are examined in this book. These stories were sometimes promoted by a few local writers—perhaps owing to personal relationships, perhaps because it was easier to see the FBI deal in simplified and elementary terms. The reality is far more complex than any gilded version. Fortunately, most Boston journalists and writers who have covered this story did not opt for the easy way out. Most have struggled with the voluminous record now available for public scrutiny. For our part, we have tried our best to be guided by the weight of the evidence—that is, our own interviews and reporting, the sworn testimony, the government records, and the court rulings. If, after all that, we have still erred on occasion in nuance or shading, it was not from any lack of effort to get the story right.
Notes
INTRODUCTION
Nearly all of the material came from our own firsthand experiences reporting the initial story in the Boston Globe in 1988 disclosing Whitey Bulger’s ties to the FBI and John Connolly. Other material was drawn from Billy Bulger’s memoir While the Music Lasts: My Life in Politics and from wiretapped conversations as part of the 1990 indictment of nearly fifty people in a South Boston drug case.
CHAPTER 1: 1975
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 H. Paul Rico, January 9, 13, and 14, 1998; retired FBI agent Dennis Condon, May 1, 4, and 5, 1998; on-the-record interviews between retired FBI agent John Connolly and the Boston Globe (1998), WBZ-AM Radio (October 27, 1998), WRKO-AM Radio (October 24, 1998), Boston magazine (November 1998), and the Boston Tab (October 27, 1998).
For other parts of this chapter, particularly for the historical context of the city, busing, and law enforcement, we drew on our own book The Underboss: The Rise and Fall of a Mafia Family and historian Thomas O’Connor’s South Boston: My Home Town.
For biographical information on Bulger, we relied on our prior reporting and articles in the Boston Globe, published in September 1988 and July 1998. Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby’s two columns titled “Busing’s Legacy” (January 6 and 7, 1999) provided a sharp analysis and summary of busing. Information regarding the killing of Tommy King came from the superseding indictment unsealed on September 28, 2000, in United States v Kevin P. Weeks and Kevin P. O’Neil, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, criminal docket 99-10371 and from newspaper articles in the Boston Globe and Herald on September 22, 2000.
We also drew on government documents and FBI reports either in our possession or released as part of the Wolf hearings. In particular, we drew on FBI reports about meetings with Bulger in the early 1970s and with Flemmi during the 1960s, including but not limited to reports released during the Wolf hearings as exhibits 20, 21, 24, 25, 28, 95, 97, 215, 217, 219, and 220.
The FBI’s Manual of Investigative Operations Guidelines (MIOG) and The Attorney General’s Informant Guidelines address the rules and regulations regarding the appropriate handling of criminal informants by government agents.
Judge Mark L. Wolf’s ruling of September 15, 1999, pinned down a number of facts about the FBI’s early alliance with Flemmi and Bulger. In particular, it is interesting to note that, under oath, Paul Rico denied calling Flemmi to tip him off to his indictment. But the judge ruled that, based on all the “credible evidence,” Rico’s denial was “not persuasive” (“Memorandum and Order,” p. 95). “Flemmi received a call from Rico,” the judge ruled. Wolf also found that Rico “aided and abetted the unlawful flight of a fugitive, in violation of 18 USC, sects. 1073 and 2” (p. 94).
CHAPTER 2: SOUTH BOSTON
Interviews: John Connolly’s 1998 interviews with WBZ-AM Radio and WRKO-AM Radio and with the Boston Globe (see main sources for chapter 1).
The biographical sections on William and James Bulger used dozens of background and on-the-record interviews for Boston Globe articles on the brothers in 1988 and 1998.
For the history section, we relied on: Michael Patrick MacDonald, All Souls: A Family Story from Southie; William V. Shannon, The American Irish: A Political and Social Portrait; Thomas H. O’Connor, Bible, Brahmins, and Bosses: A Short History of Boston, Boston Catholics: A History of the Church and Its People, and South Boston: My Home Town; J. Anthony Lukas, Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families; Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga; Robert Kee, Ireland: A History; Jack Beatty, The Rascal King; Gerard O’Neill and Dick Lehr, The Underboss: The Rise and Fall of a Mafia Family; and Boston Globe and Boston Herald articles about the murder of Donald Killeen, the arrest of Thomas Nee, an
d William Bulger’s unsuccessful attempt to amend the Massachusetts constitution to allow aid to parochial schools.
FBI records: Dennis Condon’s reports on unsuccessful efforts to recruit James Bulger as an informant in 1972; John Connolly’s reports on meetings with James Bulger from 1975 to 1980.
Court records: The sworn testimony at the Wolf hearings of Dennis Condon, May 1 and 5, 1998; Wolf, “Memorandum and Order.”
Judge Wolf addressed the issue of Stephen Flemmi telling the FBI where Frank Salemme could be found in New York City.
Both Flemmi and [Dennis] Condon deny that Flemmi provided the FBI with information that led to Salemme’s arrest. In the context of all of the credible evidence in this case, it appears that this claim is not correct. In any event, Salemme’s arrest and subsequent prosecution for the Fitzgerald bombing proved to be beneficial to Flemmi. In 1970, Hugh Shields, a codefendant in the Bennett murder case, had been tried and acquitted. In 1973, Salemme was tried on the Fitzgerald bombing charge. Robert Daddeico, who was being protected by the government, was an important witness. Daddeico testified that Salemme had participated in the Fitzgerald bombing. Daddeico claimed, however, that he had lied previously when he had said that Flemmi was also involved. Salemme was convicted and, as a result, spent the next fifteen years in prison (“Memorandum and Order,” pp. 100-101).
CHAPTER 3: HARD BALL
Interviews: Former Norfolk County district attorney William Delahunt, former Norfolk County prosecutor John Kivlan, former Norfolk County prosecutor Matthew Connolly, and a brief interview with former loan company executive Rita Tobias.
Police records: Written reports of Quincy Police Department detectives on interviews with a waitress on April 22, 1983, about media calls concerning Delahunt, and on May 9, 1983, about a visit she had from Stephen Flemmi. Another Quincy Police Department report on a May 14, 1983, interview with a restaurant chef who was visited by FBI agents.
FBI records: Several reports in 1976 and 1977 concerning Francis Green’s account of an extortion attempt by James Bulger and others at Green’s restaurant.
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.
CHAPTER 4: BOB ’N’ WEAVE
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:
Several officials of National Melotone, a vending machine company, tried to prompt an FBI investigation of Flemmi, Bulger and their associates for using threats of violence to have National Melotone’s vending machines replaced with machines from Flemmi and Bulger’s National Vending Company. Rather than pursue this information, report it to local law enforcement, or advise anyone other than perhaps Morris . . . Connolly successfully sought to protect Flemmi and Bulger. More specifically, Connolly claimed that if an investigation of their allegations was conducted the executives of National Melotone and their families would be in great danger, requiring participation in the federal Witness Protection Program and relocation.... It dissuaded the representatives of National Melotone from pursuing their charges. Connolly did, however, tell Bulger and Flemmi about the problem. (pp. 134-35)
CHAPTER 5: WIN, PLACE, AND SHOW
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).
CHAPTER 6: GANG OF TWO?
Main sources: The sworn testimony at the Wolf hearings of Stephen Flemmi, August 20, 25, and 26, 1998; and John Morris, April 21, 2
2, 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.
CHAPTER 7: BETRAYAL
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.