Where the Bodies Were Buried

by T. J. English

  The defense team’s closing argument became even less probative when Brennan handed over the reins to his co-counsel.

  Throughout the trial, J. W. Carney had seemed to become increasingly unfocused. Carney was the one who had been saying to the media from the outset that his client would take the stand, and when Bulger chose not to do so, the lawyer appeared deflated. He remained vigorous in his legal arguments before the judge, but his grasp of the particulars of the case at hand unraveled in the final days, culminating in a closing argument that was slipshod and uninspired.

  He went for the folksy approach, mentioning to the jury before he began that if he seemed nervous it was because, for the first time in his thirty-five-year legal career, “my mother is in court watching me.” The attorney then began his summation with a rambling example of why the government’s witnesses couldn’t be trusted, citing the television show The Brady Bunch—an oddly outdated reference—and then segueing into an anecdote about buying a television from a youthful but untrustworthy sales assistant, all of which was unnecessary if you, the jury, had first utilized a copy of Consumer Reports magazine. And if all of this weren’t enough to underscore the jury’s need to make wise evaluations, Carney free-associated on the subjects of elective surgery, childbearing, and consulting a guidance counselor as further obtuse examples of informed decision making.

  Carney delivered some tart one-liners: Of Martorano, he noted, “I think if you did a CAT scan, you’d have troubling finding a heart in this guy.” After quoting from the testimony of Kevin Weeks where he declared, “I’ve been lying my whole life; I’m a criminal,” Carney waited a few beats before saying wryly to the jury, “May I kiss you, Mr. Weeks, for your candor?”

  The one-liners elicited chuckles from some in the jury and the spectators’ gallery, but Carney’s attempts to make substantive points often led to dismay. He sought to link Martorano to the historical quagmire of Joseph Barboza, noting that the witness was a protégé of Barboza. But in his reference to the Teddy Deegan murder and Barboza having framed innocent men for the crime with the help of the FBI, Carney mistakenly identified Jimmy Martorano as one of the true killers when he meant to say Jimmy Flemmi. He repeated this mistake throughout his summation. Elsewhere, he referred to Kevin Weeks as Kevin Nee, once correcting that mistake only to repeat it twice more before he was finished.

  Carney used barely half of his allotted time, ending with a boilerplate plea to the jury that they live up to their constitutional duties by saying, “No, we don’t find the evidence to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt. You can say it with courage that the prosecutors have not met their burden of proof, and then you will embody our constitutional protections.”

  Given the tepid nature of Carney’s portion of the closing argument, and the overwhelming evidence aligned against Bulger, it was a surprise that the jury deliberations took as long as they did. For five days, the jury gathered to deliberate behind closed doors. The media and interested spectators also gathered. These days were a time for followers of the Bulger saga to kibitz and speculate. Waiting for a verdict had an air of expectation not because there was much question how the verdict would go, but because the verdict represented the end of a story that had held the city in its grip for at least three decades.

  Finally, the jury announced that they were ready with their verdict, the word spreading via texts and Twitter. The media and trial observers flooded into the Moakley Courthouse and took their positions. Bulger was brought into the courtroom. By this time, Whitey had adopted a nonchalant attitude, as if the verdict meant nothing to him. He sat down at the defense counsel’s table and immediately began scribbling notes on a legal pad, as he had often throughout the latter weeks of the trial.

  The jury was brought into the courtroom.

  Bulger was asked to stand.

  The court clerk began to read the verdict. It was going to take some time. There were thirty-two counts and multiple criminal acts within each count.

  Many of the counts were pro forma: Bulger had already admitted to racketeering, loan-sharking, illegal gambling, drug trafficking, and gun possession. The clerk announced the word guilty in relation to these charges as if he were reading from a grocery list. It was when the clerk reached the portion of the verdict sheet that involved the nineteen murders that the entire gathering was riveted to attention.

  Almost immediately it was clear that the prosecution had not scored an across-the-board victory on these charges. With the clerk announcing “proved” or “not proved” to each of the murder counts, it was a mixed verdict. Overall, Bulger was found guilty on eleven of the murders, with seven being declared “not proved,” and one, the murder of Debra Davis, resulting in a declaration of “no finding.”

  The reading of the verdict had taken twenty minutes. When it was over, Bulger was asked by Judge Casper, “Do you fully understand the verdict reached by the jury in this case?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” said Whitey.

  Bulger sat down and resumed scribbling on his notepad.

  The judge thanked the men and women of the jury for their service, and they were dismissed. After they were gone, Casper announced a date two months hence when the guilty party would be sentenced for his crimes.

  A gaggle of U.S. marshals gathered around Bulger; he stood and was led from the courtroom. The trial was over.

  It had been a long haul: thirty-five days of testimony spread over two months. Seventy-two witnesses. After two days of closing statements and the judge’s official charging of the jury, deliberations had lasted for thirty-two and a half hours over five days.

  Not everyone was happy with the verdict. Family members of those murdered for whom Bulger’s involvement was not proved were vocal in their displeasure. William O’Brien, whose father, also named William O’Brien, had been gunned down in the shooting so dramatically described by witness and shooting survivor Ralph DeMasi, was livid. He stormed into the hallway outside the courtroom and cursed loudly. Other family members expressed outrage and dismay outside the courthouse, where the media horde was the largest it had been, double its usual size, with helicopters buzzing overhead and well-known local television reporters conducting live remotes for their various news agencies, cable shows, and podcasts.

  Patricia Donahue, who had become a favorite of the media because of her dignity and politeness in the face of such trying circumstances, seemed relieved. She told the press that she had cried during the reading of the verdict, adding, “I think there was justice for me, but maybe not for some other victims.”

  William O’Brien continued to vent his anger, saying to the media, “My father was just murdered again, forty years later, in the courtroom. The prosecution dropped the ball. . . . That jury should be ashamed of themselves.”

  Steve Davis, who had become such a ubiquitous figure in and around the courthouse and with the media, also expressed displeasure. He said that he was certain Bulger had played a role in his sister’s death, no matter what the jury decided. “It’s not over for me,” he said, and then he broke down in tears and stepped away from the microphone.

  After the family members had spoken, Carney and Brennan stepped up and claimed that they were satisfied with how the trial had gone; they declared victory. Said Carney, “Mr. Bulger knew from the time that he was arrested that he was going to be behind the walls of a prison for the rest of his life, or be injected with a chemical that would kill him. . . . This trial was never about Jim Bulger being set free.” Carney and his co-counsel both noted that an unprecedented level of corruption had been exposed during the trial, which had been Bulger’s primary goal.

  In the warm summer breeze that blew in from Boston Harbor, the lawyers’ rhetoric rang hollow. By attempting to oversimplify their client’s relationship with the FBI and others in the criminal justice system, they had contributed to a further muddling of the facts. This was partly what they had been paid to do, the bulk of their fees, in the end, covered by U.S. taxpayers.

  The fina
l group of interested parties to speak to the media were those representing the federal government. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, in the job once held by Jeremiah O’Sullivan, stood at the bank of microphones flanked by eight men representing various branches of the U.S. Justice Department. None of these directors and supervisors had been in their current positions when James Bulger was active in Boston. Likely they knew no more or less about Bulger than the average citizen who followed his story through journalism accounts and books. Nonetheless, these people were there to dance on Whitey’s grave. The conviction of Bulger was a big moment in their careers, and they were there to receive the accolades and take part in throwing the last few shovels of dirt over the remains of the Bulger legacy.

  “Today is a day that many in this city thought would never come,” said Ortiz. “We hope that we stand here today to mark an end to an era that was very ugly in Boston’s history.” Ortiz went on to say, “The myth, the legend, the saga of James Bulger is now finally over. He is ancient history.”

  The emphasis on history, putting the story of Bulger in the distant past, was the key talking point as leaders of the federal Bulger Fugitive Task Force, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service, and other law enforcement agencies followed Ortiz to the microphone. Said Vincent Lisi, a man who had only recently been appointed SAC of the Boston FBI office, “I realize that the actions of a small percentage of law enforcement many years ago caused some people to lose faith and confidence in us. . . . We went through a dark period where there was corruption, but we’re beyond that now.”

  It was a mighty act of prestidigitation: now you see it, now you don’t. Through a collective expression of relief and pride on the part of various governmental representatives of the criminal justice system in Boston, Whitey and his legacy was no more. Never again would a federal official be compelled to explain—nor would anyone, outside of John Connolly, be held criminally accountable—for having protected and underwritten the career of one of the most notorious U.S. gangsters of recent times. Case closed.

  ON HANOVER STREET, in the North End, Joe Salvati stopped to have a smoke at his favorite cigar lounge not far from Café Pompeii. In those days when the jury was deliberating over Bulger’s fate, Salvati paid little attention. There was no real suspense, after all. Whitey was going down, and he would no doubt live out his dying days in prison. Like everyone else in Boston, Salvati was pleased to see Bulger get what he deserved. But Joe felt no great sense of closure from the verdict.

  “I’ll never get those thirty years back,” he told me.

  Like the family members of Bulger’s victims who had received copious attention during the weeks of the trial, speaking with the media on a near-daily basis, Salvati was among the walking wounded. But Joe sought little attention during the trial, and few came asking for his opinion. Salvati’s history represented yet another unseemly side of the Bulger saga—the poisoned root that spawned the entire rotten organism—that the prosecutors had been working to keep buried since the first day of the trial.

  Now that it was over, I asked Salvati if he believed the results of the Bulger trial would lead to more honest agents and prosecutors.

  Joe the Horse pursed his lips—a smile not of mirth but of resignation. “They protected Bulger the same way they protected Barboza. A lot of people in the government got away with that, with no repercussions.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but do you think the government has finally learned its lesson?”

  “What’s to learn?” he said. “They got away with it. A lot of people were in on it, and they were able to retire with a pension, go home, and spend time with their grandkids. And any new agents or prosecutors in there now, the lesson is, you can get away with it, too.”

  Salvati and I sat in glum silence for a few seconds. It was not a pleasant thought, what Joe was saying, but I could think of no counterargument. And then Salvati put the cherry on top. “You ask me,” he said, “I don’t think they learned nothin’ . ”

  EPILOGUE

  TWO MONTHS AFTER the verdict, I met juror number twelve, Janet Uhlar. The occasion was the official sentencing of James J. Bulger in November 2013. We met at the Palm restaurant, not far from the Moakley Courthouse. Uhlar was well known there; during the trial, the jury often was taken to the Palm for their meals. To the maître d’ and the managers, Uhlar’s face was familiar, and as we entered the restaurant for our midday meeting, a manager saw Janet and congratulated her on the jury having reached its verdict.

  In the weeks since Bulger was found guilty, Uhlar had been vocal in her criticisms of the government’s case. She had, of course, reached the same verdicts as the other jurors, with the defendant being found guilty on thirty-one of thirty-two counts, which included eleven of nineteen murders. But it had been an excruciating process. “Yes, Bulger was involved in some horrible crimes,” she said, once we sat down in a quiet corner. “He admitted to some of those crimes in the opening statement. But to me the government’s case was a travesty of justice.”

  The day before, in front of the courthouse, Uhlar had given an impromptu press conference to some of the media. She excoriated Wyshak and Kelly, characterizing the deals they made for the testimony of Martorano and Flemmi as “immoral.” She suggested that the trial had likely barely skimmed the surface in its presentation of who was responsible for enabling Bulger’s career, and she criticized the media for not being more diligent in investigating corruption. “The media needs to start doing its job,” she said angrily.

  Her comments were aired on the local Fox News affiliate and created a stir. Other jurors were quoted in the press criticizing Uhlar. Howie Carr, on his radio show and also in his column in the Boston Herald, referred to Uhlar as a “nut job” and suggested that she must be in love with Bulger.

  The assault on Uhlar continued. That morning, in front of the courthouse, Steve Davis got in Uhlar’s face and demanded, “What are you trying to prove?”

  “I’m concerned about the integrity of the Constitution,” she replied.

  “The Constitution?” Davis was incredulous. “Forget about the Constitution. This is real life.”

  Davis was angry. He blamed the jury for having reached a verdict of no finding in relation to his sister’s murder. More recently, Uhlar, specifically, had further raised his ire when she and two other jurors drafted a letter to Judge Casper arguing that Steve Davis should not be allowed to present an impact statement before the court, as other family members of Bulger’s murder victims would be allowed to do at the time of sentencing. Uhlar’s argument was that the jury had taken their duties very seriously and reached their conclusion on the Debbie Davis murder after careful deliberation. To allow Davis to speak was an affront to the jury.

  Uhlar’s position was distressing to Davis, partly, perhaps, because he had already begun promoting his yet-to-be-published book, entitled Impact Statement, on Amazon.com and other Internet sites.

  In front of the courthouse, Davis cursed at Janet, calling her “crazy” and other insults not fit for print. Uhlar walked away from the courthouse in tears. Later, she claimed, she was lectured by a female reporter from the Globe and told, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. The media in Boston has been covering this story for twenty years and doing a great job.”

  In many ways, the reaction that Janet Uhlar experienced was akin to what Bob Fitzpatrick had also undergone in his attempts to shed light on the Bulger conspiracy. To adopt a position different from the status quo was to engender the wrath of the Boston establishment, including the media.

  At the Palm restaurant, Janet had regained her composure. Her argument, she told me, was not with Steve Davis. “The U.S. attorney’s office has been masterful in how they’re doing this,” she said. “They’re playing the victims’ families again and again and again. They smash them down and then raise them up to give impact statements. It’s this game they’re playing with everybody.”

  Uhlar had become especially disgusted by Wyshak and Kelly, who, she had come to bel
ieve, should be prosecuted for some of their actions. She cited the testimony of Kevin O’Neill, owner of Triple O’s, who described from the stand how prosecutor Brian Kelly had manufactured false accusations against him so that a judge would hold him in jail. Kelly was engaged in a heavy-handed effort to force O’Neill to cooperate with the prosecution. Said Uhlar, “They held him on trumped-up charges. I was in shock listening to that whole thing. It wasn’t until [O’Neill] gave Kelly what he wanted that they let him out of jail. That was such a violation of that man’s civil rights. And Brian Kelly was so arrogant about it. He wasn’t even ashamed.”

  Eventually, Uhlar had begun to ask herself, “Why is Bulger so much worse than Martorano and Morris and the others? Why are they free today and all this effort and money is spent on convicting Bulger? How do [the prosecutors] weigh that out? How can they justify that? It didn’t make sense to me. It still doesn’t make sense to me.”

  At certain points in the trial, Uhlar had begun to sense that there was an explanation outside and beyond the scope of the evidence. Something was being hidden. She had tried to bring her concerns into the jury room during deliberations, to no avail. Most of the jurors bought the prosecution’s case without serious questions. Why? “Because it’s the government,” said Uhlar. “In this country, people want to believe their government. And if you say something long enough, they believe it. People have been deceived for so long, they don’t know how to ask the questions.”

  With a jury overwhelmingly inclined to vote “guilty” across the board, Uhlar had to settle with getting the jurors to at least evaluate the various murder charges individually. Enough of the jurors were disgusted with Martorano, Weeks, Morris, and Flemmi as witnesses that they acknowledged you could not take the word of any one of them without corroboration. And so, if the charge rested on the sole testimony of any one of those four witnesses, the jurors agreed to rule “not proved.”