Man: Thirty years ago, my wife and I
purchased a liquor license.
Then we had the liquor store up
and running by Christmas.
We poured our heart and soul in it.
And then, lo and behold,
I get a knock on my door
one night, I'm at the house,
my wife's down at the liquor store
working, and it was Kevin Weeks
and Whitey Bulger at the door,
and I didn't know,
what the hell do they want?
"You got a problem."
I said, "I don't... what problem?"
He says, "Listen,
we were hired to kill you."
I'm like, what?
He said, you got to understand,
the other liquor stores,
they hired us to kill you.
I just couldn't believe it,
I didn't know what to even think,
I was dumbfounded.
Actually, I froze.
He said, "But what we're going to do
instead of that, we're just going to
become your partners." I said, "No,
you're not becoming my partners."
And then, Bulger's right there.
He's just staring at me,
and just grinding his teeth like,
"You don't understand,
we're taking
the fucking liquor store."
I was like, "It's not for sale."
He said, "I'll fucking kill you.
I'll stab you, and then I'll kill you."
I'm like, Holy Jesus.
And then they pulled out a gun.
I was like, "Oh, fuck."
They picked up my kid.
Daughter was a year.
He said, "It would be terrible
for this kid to grow up without a father."
I was like... and I melted.
Nothing you can do.
Ever since that day,
I've never been the same.
I couldn't protect my own children.
As a man, that just took me away.
And I'm not over it yet.
I won't be over, and maybe I'll never
get over it, but I surely can't wait
to get in front of that court,
on that stand and testify
against that. 30 years ago,
he scared me to death, he don't
scare me to death no more.
Woman: After 16 years, the FBI
finally has its man.
Boston mob boss James Whitey Bulger
was captured in Southern California.
Man: ... along with his longtime girlfriend,
Catherine Elizabeth Greig.
The 83-year-old
is accused of drug trafficking,
extortion and murder, all while
working as an FBI informant.
He was on the lam for 16 years.
I never committed a crime in the
16 years that I was with Catherine.
My whole life changed
when I was with her.
I turned and become very,
very human, I guess you'd say it.
And I love the woman intensely.
When I was captured, I told them,
"If you people," I says, "will let Catherine
go, I'll plead guilty to all crimes."
"Any crime," I says, "innocent
or guilty. Youse can execute me,
you can give me life sentence,
you can do whatever youse want,
but I want her to be free."
And I meant it, and I mean it today.
If they said to me,
"Plead guilty, and we'll
let her go free and shut your mouth,"
I would do it.
Woman: It's been a long time coming.
After 16 years on the lam
and two years in custody,
the criminal trial of James Whitey Bulger
began today at the John J. Moakley
courthouse in South Boston,
just blocks away from
Whitey's former home turf.
(sirens wailing)
Man: This is what it looked like here
at the courthouse earlier this morning.
A police escort and several black
SUVs roll up to federal court.
Behind the tinted windows,
James Whitey Bulger,
who is back in Boston to face
19 charges of murder
in the same city he's accused
of terrorizing as a gang boss.
Man 2: Some of the victims' families
also arriving today,
hoping to see justice done
after waiting almost 30 years.
I'm happy that this is about to start.
It's been a long wait.
A really, really long wait in time.
So, I'll see youse when I get out.
How are you going to
feel being in there?
I don't know.
Sick to my stomach now,
I can only imagine
when I get in there.
Woman: Prosecutors describe
James Whitey Bulger as the center
of mayhem and murder in Boston
for 30 years,
as the boss of Boston's
notorious Winter Hill Gang.
A man so dangerous that he
joined Osama Bin Laden
at the top of the FBI's
Most Wanted list.
It was the gang that ran amok. You
have people who were being extorted,
who talked of having shotgun
barrels stuck in their mouths,
of machine guns
pointed at their groin.
Boeri: Body bags shown them
before Bulger shakes them down.
It was absolute terror.
Back then, 70s, 80s, people
were missing every day, bang.
He didn't come home,
he's a dead man.
They're never going to find him.
Brian Howell. Dead.
Michael Donahue. Dead.
Bodies were being,
left and right.
And were all involved
in this circle of shit
in South Boston.
Man: And you have a fascination
with Whitey Bulger
as a Robin Hood figure, this elusive,
Houdini-like crime boss,
whose younger brother, Bill Bulger,
was Senate President,
the most powerful
politician in Massachusetts.
All this stuff that was sort of
magical about him
that made him seem
beyond the reach of law enforcement.
Man: There were over 25 years
where James Bulger ruled
the organized crime world.
He was never charged
with even a misdemeanor.
The Department of Justice
did nothing to prosecute him.
Woman: Whitey was the guy
that got away. Whitey was the guy
out in the wind, thumbing his nose,
"Ha-ha, I won," for years.
So today is huge. I mean,
I think that, you know, what...
There's so many people who never
thought this day would ever happen.
Man: James Whitey Bulger fled Boston
in late 1994, as federal agents
were about to arrest him
in connection with 19 killings,
racketeering, and other crimes that
spanned the early 1970s to mid 1980s.
Man 2: He fled after being
tipped off by an FBI agent.
He was about to be indicted.
Woman: Bulger's role as an FBI
informant is central to this trial.
Man 3: Now he'll face justice
in the same city
many say he ran with an iron fist.
I'll be honest with you,
I have today's date, June 12th.
But lately, I couldn't...
The past few days,
I couldn't tell you what,
and it's the God's truth,
I couldn't tell you
if it was Sunday, Monday,
Friday. It's... I was...
Man: How come?
My head's been so twisted over all this.
You know, it's like... surreal.
You know, it's...
it's happening.
Whitey killed my sister.
She was looked upon as a good person.
She'd come in the room and she'd,
she'd light it up.
"Hey." You know, "Everybody..."
You know, it's...
He had no right to take her life.
And he took her teeth out,
her hands, and...
Woman: Mike was killed 30 years ago.
But, you know, I think when you
lose somebody, there's no time.
Sometimes it just seems
like yesterday.
I don't think he should've
died when he died.
He had too much to live for.
You know, the day he was killed,
he was looking for my son Michael
to take him with him.
But, he was down the park,
and he couldn't find him.
So I said, just, you know,
"Just go without him."
Thank God, you know. I guess there's
a reason for everything, you know.
Davis: Did you get a haircut?
Get over here,
I want to introduce you.
Look it, I didn't know I was
supposed to get all dressed up.
- I just got a shirt on.
- Jesus Christ.
- Today, I feel fantastic.
- Man: How come?
Well, 30 years ago, they
tormented me, and it's been
30 years of torment, and now it's
coming to an end.
Thank God he's behind bars.
My father always told me that good
will always triumph over evil.
Even if it takes a long time.
And that's just what I'm here for.
- We don't forget.
- Rakes: No.
- No.
- You know what I mean?
The only kind of comfort I get
through this is talking with him.
You know, me and Steve
meet every morning,
just about every morning for coffee.
That's why Steve and l,
we have something in common,
this psychotic individual.
We're going to bring justice,
it has to be done.
Finally payback.
As nervous as I am, exciting,
the adrenaline is pumping, I just can't,
I can't believe I'm finally here.
I finally get to stop.
I'll have my day, my time.
Woman: Gentleman, let me ask you
just to say a few words
as you're going in,
what your thoughts are.
Anxious. The day has come.
Man: What are you going to be
thinking as you look at him
in that courtroom today?
Well, you know, 30 years ago,
I'd never look at him.
Now I can't wait to look him
right in the eyes.
Reporter on radio: It's day one of one of
the most anticipated trials in decades.
Reporter 2: Cameras should've been
allowed in the courtroom.
Obviously, in federal court,
they are not allowed.
Female reporter: For the people of
Boston, this case is about justice.
It is about redemption,
it is about retribution.
Opening statements in the trial
of James Whitey Bulger.
Reporter 3: The Assistant US Attorney,
Brian Kelly, telling jurors.
Kelly: "He did the dirty work himself,
because he was a hands-on killer
who ran amok in the city of Boston
for almost 30 years.
Bulger was deeply involved
in the distribution of drugs
in the South Boston area.
Bulger was one of the biggest
informants in Boston.
Bulger routinely met
with FBI agent John Connolly
and gave him information
to protect himself,
or get the competitive edge
that he wanted."
Reporter 3: He then showed the jury
pictures of each
of the 19 people
investigators say Bulger killed.
Woman: They described victims,
former friends, associates,
girlfriends, all killed
and buried in secret graves.
Some relatives in court listening
choked up when they heard that.
Woman 2: The government,
ending its opening statements
by slowly, dramatically,
reading off the names
of the 19 alleged murder victims.
Man: Bucky Barrett, Roger Wheeler,
Brian Halloran, Michael Donahue,
John Callahan, Deborah Davis,
and Deborah Hussey.
Kelly: This is not
a traditional murder case.
It's a racketeering charge.
And within the racketeering charge,
there are multiple predicate crimes
that we have to prove.
We have to prove at least two of them.
And Bulger is charged with 33
separate predicate crimes.
19 separate murders,
multiple extortions,
drug dealing, gambling.
And of those,
we have to prove at least two
beyond a reasonable doubt,
and we have to prove
that Bulger was part of
this criminal enterprise
that was committing
all these crimes for 30 years.
Man: Defense attorney J.W. Carney
stunned the courtroom, admitting
for the first time that Bulger was
involved in drug trafficking.
Carney: James Bulger was involved
in drug dealing. He was involved in
bookmaking, loan sharking.
These crimes are what he did.
Man: But he poked holes
in government witnesses.
Woman: Carney tried to paint
a picture of Bulger associates
turned government witnesses,
John Martorano, Kevin Weeks,
and Steven Flemmi
as the real murderers
who just pinned their crimes
on his client.
Boeri: The defense said, all those three
witnesses' testimony was purchased.
They were murderous thugs
whose testimony
was purchased by sparing them
the death penalty,
cutting their prison sentence,
and offering them all sorts of incentives.
Given these three individuals,
given their backgrounds,
given their character, would you believe
them beyond a reasonable doubt?
Woman: Carney denied
that Bulger was an informant.
The evidence will show
that he was never an informant
for John Connolly and the FBI.
You will learn the depth of corruption
in federal law enforcement that
existed during this period.
This was how James Bulger was able
to never, ever be charged.
Boeri: What makes this trial
extraordinary, and really crazy,
the defense is defending him
from an assertion that he was
an informant, even though it's not
a charge. And so what seems crazy
is the government has
gotten sucked into this as well,
they're trying to prove that he is,
even though it's totally irrelevant
to his guilt or innocence.
So it's not about guilt or innocence,
it's about his legacy,
of wanting to establish he wasn't
a tout, a rat, an informant,
whatever you want to call it.
(sirens wailing)
Carney: I was as surprised as anyone
when James Whitey Bulger was captured.
Is the government excited about
having Bulger come back?
Some people certainly are.
But there are others, I think,
who have many sleepless nights
about what James Bulger
is going to testify to.
I believe the reason that they are
giving so much protection to Bulger
to transport him from the jail
to the courthouse,
is they are worried about
someone with a sniper rifle
taking him out on the way to court
so that he can't testify.
That's how explosive
his testimony will be.
Man: This is Whitey's world.
You go from Squantum,
where he lived with Cathy...
It's basically six miles, if you drive
it, up to Castle Island over there.
That's Southie, where
he did most of his crime.
He murdered people there.
He buried people there.
And he went to sleep there.
So, that's his world.
Man 2: I spent much of my childhood
in South Boston,
and even as a kid, I knew
Whitey Bulger ran the show here.
But Whitey was very lucky.
In the 1960s, there was
an Irish gang war.
And over 60 people were killed.
But Whitey was in prison.
So he missed all that.
He would've had
a high, high chance
of being a victim of that violence.
When he got out of prison,
Whitey went to Howie Winter, who was
the leader of the Winter Hill Gang,
preeminent non-Mafia gang
in this region. And he said to Howie,
"We got to stop the war in Southie,
too many people are dying,
we're losing money."
Howie was very impressed by Whitey.
And one of the things
that impressed him most
was that Whitey had done time
in Alcatraz.
Now, you know, for you and me,
you know, we like to hand in our resume
and say, "See, I went to Stanford,
I got my MBA at Wharton."
But in that milieu, if you're a wise guy,
you say, "Oh, you went to Alcatraz."
And Howie said
that Whitey came across
as a guy that could be a leader.
So Howie mediates the end
of the war with a rival gang
in South Boston called the Mullens,
in which the Mullens
actually were about to prevail.
And the Mullen's guys think,
you know, they're about to
get the lion's share of everything.
And Howie threw them for a loop,
when he announced that Jimmy Bulger,
he's going to front money for them,
they can put money on the street,
Ioan shark,
they can do a gambling operation,
but Whitey's going to be in charge.
And the Mullen's guys were going,
"What, are you kidding me?
We were winning."
And Tommy King, who was
a member of the Mullens said,
"We should have killed Whitey
when we had a chance,
because this is going to
come back to bite us."
Man: Southie was great growing up.
Everybody knew everyone.
Everyone watched out for everybody.
It was great.
You know, we didn't have a lot, but
we had a lot of fun with what we had.
My brothers both went to
college, they went to Harvard,
so I was the only male at home.
I knew how to fight,
and I was kind of handy, so I started
working different bars, bouncing,
and I ended up at Triple O's.
It was a neighborhood bar.
It was kind of a rough bar,
and that's where I met Jim Bulger
and Steve Flemmi.
I was 18 at the time.
Jim was like an older brother,
he was guiding me through
a minefield and stuff,
and teaching me a lot as I went.
When I first started working with them,
they started out small, you know,
and just, you know, beating people up,
and little by little, take baby steps.
You know, from gambling,
loan sharking, you know,
to extortion and stuff, and doing
extortions with Jim Bulger and stuff,
and I was making a lot of money.
But the moment
that everything changed for me,
the moment my life changed, was when
I was involved in the first murder.
It was a double homicide.
So then I knew I was in,
and there was no getting out.
So I decided, "Well, if I'm going to
do this, I'm going to do it right.
I'm going to be the best at it
that I can."
(sirens wailing)
Woman: It was tense in court Tuesday
between James Whitey Bulger
and the man who was once like a son
to him, his former right-hand man,
turned cooperating
government witness, Kevin Weeks.
Woman 2: Weeks was one of
the government's star eyewitnesses.
As Bulger's mob enforcer, Kevin Weeks
says he buried the bodies,
moved the guns, and collected
the cash which bookmakers
and businessmen paid
to stay in business.
Woman: Weeks calmly and coldly
testified he watched James Bulger
brutally murder Deborah Hussey, John
Mclntyre, and Arthur "Bucky" Barrett.
Weeks: Jim Bulger stepped out with
a machine gun, was put in a chair,
tied with chains.
As he walked down the stairs,
Jim Bulger shot him
in the back of the head.
He was strangled,
he was just gagging...
Jim Bulger asked him
if he wanted one in the head,
and the kid said, "Yes, please,"
and shot him in the head.
There Jim had her,
strangled around the neck,
he's got his legs wrapped around her,
her lips turned blue, face,
the eyes rolled up in the head
and everything.
Steve Flemmi says, "She's not dead."
He wraps a cord around
her neck and starts twisting.
Teeth were pulled, and she's
buried in the basement floor.
Woman: As the defense
began cross-examining
the former Bulger protege,
Weeks looked annoyed.
Carmey: So when you told me
a moment ago that you never lied
to the investigators, that was a lie.
I've been lying my whole life,
I'm a criminal.
Woman: The tension
reached a boiling point,
when defense attorney Jay Carney
asked Weeks:
Carney: You were concerned
that you would be viewed as a rat.
No one calls you a rat?
Weeks: No one says it to my face.
No one's ever said it to me.
You know, maybe behind my back.
Carney: What would you do
if they said it to you?
"We'll go outside, just the
two of us, you say it to my face
and see what I do to you."
And he looked at me,
he goes, "Physical?"
And I says, "Yeah, I'll hurt you."
You know, I mean he asked a question
I gave him an honest answer.
Woman: But the best was yet to come
as Carney asked how the killings
bother Weeks.
The court transcript reads,
"Because we killed people that
were rats, and I had the biggest rat
right next to me."
Bulger then said, "You suck."
Weeks fired back,
"(Expletive) you, okay."
Bulger gets in the last shot.
"(Expletive) you, too."
Man: This is where Whitey used to take
his walks and he would meet with people.
They stayed on the street
for quite a while,
and that never should've happened.
It's just... It's crazy, it's crazy.
Long: I worked organized crime
most of my career.
So I saw Bulger going up the chain
with the Winter Hill Gang.
Bulger and Flemmi
moved up in control.
And in 1980, a young trooper
working for me
was assigned to go down and check out
this garage down in the North End,
to see about a possible
stolen car ring.
When he went by, he noticed a lot of
organized crime figures there.
He called me, I went down,
observed for myself,
and that's when we started
this investigation.
The garage was right up here,
just a little after the truck here.
We commandeered an apartment
across the street,
and we monitored it for
about four months, every day.
And there we saw
James Bulger and Stephen Flemmi.
Anybody who is anybody in
organized crime in New England,
came here to this garage.
People who were paying rent,
protection money,
people who were in the shit,
let's say.
They were meeting daily with
the leaders of the New England Mafia.
The Angiulo crime family,
Patriarca crime family.
And it was unprecedented to see that.
It was absolutely shocking
to see that they were
actually working together.
That was like striking gold.
What surprised me, I'd say,
"Where's the Boston police?
Where's the FBI? Why isn't
anybody else doing this?"
They're right here.
They're operating so openly.
It just was shocking.
And we monitored that,
and documented it,
and we've got enough probable cause
to go to a judge
and issue a warrant so that we can
place listening devices inside.
And we planted the bug,
it worked great.
Everything was fine.
The next morning,
one of the first conversations we
picked up was what a great job
the state police
on the Mass turnpike do.
So, we knew the gig was up
right then and there.
Somebody was protecting them.
We knew we were had,
and we just couldn't figure out how.
Then one night, John Morris of the FBI
met a Boston detective
at a bachelor party.
And he was in a drunken state
and told the Boston detective
that, "I know you guys
are working with the state on a wire,
on a bug down on Lancaster Street.
And the bad guys know about it."
I couldn't believe it.
How does anybody know
outside of our group?
It didn't make sense.
Man: James Whitey Bulger's
relationship with the FBI
will be the focus of testimony
this morning.
Former FBI supervisor John Morris
is expected to take the stand.
He was head of the FBI's organized
crime squad during the 70s and 80s,
overseeing former agent,
John Connolly.
Man 2: Morris claims that he and
John Connolly shielded James Bulger
from prosecution.
In addition to hearing Morris
on the stand today,
federal prosecutors plan to discuss
James Bulger's alleged
700 page FBI informant file.
Man 3: To understand the Bulger story,
you really have to understand
how the FBI and top echelon
informant program came into being
to destroy the Italian Mafia.
It really begins before the program
even existed when Joe Velachi testified
before a Congressional committee
in 1963.
And this testimony was engineered
by Robert Kennedy,
Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy,
and it was really explosive.
Velachi came forward
and he described
the hierarchy of the five families
in New York,
and he described
the initiation ceremony.
Man: What is the name
of this organization?
"Cosa nostra," in Italian.
Man: "Cosa nostra" in Italian.
"Our thing"...and "our family,"
in English.
English: The first time one of these
Mafia guys was talking
into a television camera,
and it was a big deal,
and it stole Hoover's thunder.
Because Hoover had,
for decades now, been denying
that there was a Mafia.
Now Hoover had a problem.
He needed to make up for lost time.
And he needed to go out
and get informants
as dramatic and as explosive
as Joe Velachi.
We should all be concerned
with one goal:
the eradication of crime.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation
is as close to you
as your nearest telephone.
It seeks to be your protector in
all matters within its jurisdiction.
It belongs to you.
English: The top echelon informant
program also was what gave power
to guys like John Connolly.
Because how are you going to
get guys like Velachi?
Well, you're going to need FBI guys
who walk the walk
and talk the talk,
who can go out into that underworld
and sort of make deals
with these guys.
So the power and influence
of the swaggering agent
within the hierarchy went way up.
Man: The general topic of our
discussion today is informant handling.
And with me today is John Connolly,
a 15-year veteran of the FBI.
How do you go about developing
individuals for recruitment,
or targeting as an informant
for the Bureau?
In the case of
organized crime type people,
you probably wouldn't want
to target a boss, for instance.
You'd want someone perhaps close
to the level of criminal activity,
but not necessarily involved.
Lehr: When John Connolly was a boy,
he lived in Southie,
in the same housing project with the
Bulgers. And he was in awe of Whitey,
who was a teenage thug
with the platinum striking hair,
and the amazing Hollywood good looks.
So John Connolly, given his history
as a son of Southie,
his connection to the Bulger family,
he succeeded in forging
what has since been called
an unholy alliance
with Whitey Bulger.
Remember, these are our most
important assets that we have,
informants.
I mean, they're the name of the game.
You're going to get friendly with them,
and you're going to like them.
But you never can forget
who you work for.
(phone ringing)
Carney: Hello.
Woman: Hi, Mr. Bulger's on the phone.
Carney: All right,
please put him through.
Woman: Sure.
Thanks for calling. There
were a couple of things I wanted
- To ask you about.
- Bulger: Sure.
The first is, that you've told me
since the very first day I met you,
that you've never been an informant.
Bulger: That's correct.
Carney: Does that mean you've never
been an informant in your entire life?
Bulger: Never. As a teenager, I took
many a beating at the police stations,
and I never cracked.
As a bank robber, I was captured,
I pled guilty to free the girlfriend
that I was with,
and I got a 20 year prison sentence,
first offender.
In prison, I was part of
an escape plot. The plot fell apart,
one of the guys gave my name.
I told them, I don't know
what you're talking about. I spent months
in the hole, naked and the whole thing.
I went through a lot there.
And after four months,
for punishment they sent me
to Alcatraz. And that was it.
I never, never, never cracked.
And the Boston FBl, no way.
I met John Connolly, who's a
salty guy, Irish Catholic like myself.
You know, friendship, "If I ever
hear anything, I'll tip you off,
I'll give you a heads up."
And then I told him, "All right, John."
I says, "I'll see you. If you can
let me know, I'd appreciate it."
And that's how it got started.
Carney: This isn't really
a typical criminal trial.
James Bulger knows
that by following the strategy
he has directed us to do,
he will be found guilty,
and he's gonna die
behind the walls of a prison.
But for Jim it doesn't matter,
he's at the end of his life.
He doesn't know if he'll live
till the end of the trial,
never mind till
the end of the year.
But for him it's like, it's his last
opportunity to tell people
that he was never an informant,
that our federal government
is more corrupt in law enforcement
than anyone ever imagined,
even to this day in this trial,
it's corrupt,
and he wants people to know it.
There's a lot of things
that we need to dispel.
The fact that Jim wasn't an informant.
I mean, the local thinking
is that absolutely he was an informant.
Everybody talks about it,
books are written about it.
Until you actually
go through everything
and look at it to make your own
independent assessment,
you can't have an opinion.
So getting involved in this case,
I had an opportunity that I don't
think anybody in the public does,
is I get to see the files
that the government had
to suggest that he was an informant.
I thought that there were some things
about the file
that were so suspicious,
that I wanted to look into it in depth.
And so I sat down with Daryl,
and I asked her to come up with
an independent assessment,
whether or not she thought there
was any legitimacy to the files.
Of course I was eager to start
the project and see what I could find,
but I was also a bit skeptical.
I mean, just looking at the file
when it was handed to me,
I thought, how could that
possibly be fictitious?
It's 700 pages and it looks
very official, so it seems like
it had to be solid.
But slowly, I found a lot of
strange repetition in the file.
What I've done is created tabs
on every page where I found
alternate sources for the information.
And we learned that John Connolly
was pilfering through files.
And Connolly took specific information
from these sources,
and placed it into Mr. Bulger's file.
These alternate sources
comes from wiretaps,
it comes from phone calls,
news articles, public information,
FBI memorandums.
And the majority of the information
comes from other informant files.
A top echelon file
is supposed to be filled
with singular, unique information
that can lead to a prosecution.
And just based on the patterns
that I found looking at
other alternate sources,
it's just not consistent with someone
who was providing unique information.
Like this first page of his file,
from May 29, 1981.
The tip reads that "1544 advised
that the Mafia whacked out a guy
several weeks ago...
He's in the trunk of a car."
It doesn't tell
who whacked out the guy,
it doesn't tell what guy
was whacked out,
it doesn't tell where the car is,
there's no substantive information
in that, and there's no follow-up
in the entire file.
You turn, it's actually the last page,
June 8 of that same year,
the same exact tip shows up.
"1544 advised that source heard
that the outfit people whacked out
a guy several weeks ago
and left the individual in the trunk."
It's vague, there's no details,
and it shows up twice in his file.
This is not unusual to see reports
in one informant's file
that's similar to reports
in another informant's file.
If a crime occurs, a law-enforcement
agency surveys their informants.
They get multiple reports
from various informants
about the same criminal activity.
That's exactly what Connolly
was doing with Bulger.
The federal government
is so desperate in this trial
to try to convince people
that he's an informant.
Because James Bulger had such
a strong and influential reputation,
his name had value as a commodity
for the Department of Justice.
They needed search warrants
to take down the Mafia.
They needed to put something
down to justify intrusions
into people's civil liberties.
Nobody was going to look and see
if the information was verified.
No one was going to determine
whether it was made up by a street agent.
No one was going to determine
whether it was true or not.
It wasn't enough simply for a magistrate
to sign off on probable cause.
And there is example after example
in this case
of where they took James Bulger's
name and used it as a commodity.
It's a preposterous assertion that he
was not an FBI informant.
In fact, he used the FBl,
and they used him.
What this is all about,
quite frankly, is he doesn't mind
being called a murderer,
he doesn't mind being called
a criminal, obviously he doesn't mind
being called a drug dealer,
but he doesn't want to be called
an informant.
Because where he came from in Southie,
that's the worst thing you can be.
You can be a crook,
you can be a murderer,
but it's worse to be an informant.
That's the way he's brought up,
in his sick mind,
that's what he believes.
The fact that the file
is 700 pages, quite frankly,
that's a large file. Bulger had
this relationship for 15 or 20 years.
When they were saying that
he had a voluminous FBI file,
how long were they claiming
that he was an FBI informant?
Almost 20 years.
Okay.
Well, I have extensive experience
with a lot of informant files,
and a top echelon informant file
is never going to be 700 pages.
What should, generally,
the size of the file be?
For 20 years?
Anywhere from 60,000,
55,000, up to,
you know, 300,000.
The problem with the top echelon
informant program,
it's not unique to the Bulger case,
and a lot of people are dying
because of it.
So I file a Freedom of Information Act
lawsuit against the government,
and I won massive files,
55,000 pages of files just on
one top echelon informant,
Gregory Scarpa, a high level
informant for the FBI in New York.
His main role was to
bring down the Colombo crime family.
But at the same time,
he was lying and killing off
his rivals and committing murders,
a lot of murders.
In trial, they said
more than 50 people.
I don't know if you've ever seen
a real informant file or not.
- I haven't. That looks heavy.
- Because I don't think that you have.
See, you didn't have this
on yours, correct?
These are important, these are
showing who these went to
and who authorized these.
That's an unbelievable
amount of signatures.
Exactly.
That means everybody here
saw this or endorsed it.
Yeah, exactly.
And, but look how high it went up.
Kelly, Deloach, that's up there,
that's up there with,
with Hoover.
And then it should go into
the information that he provided.
He's given information, and then
the FBI does their own summary.
Here. "This informant has not
furnished any information
known to be false."
Do you have any of that on yours?
We don't have things like that.
And this is a total of 1147 pages.
So, and that's just the first set.
Now, I have an additional 55 coming,
55,000 coming.
Remember the day when Hank and I
were with you, and showed you
the so-called informant file
that John Connolly had been keeping?
Yeah.
Remember your reaction
to seeing that?
I was shocked. I was angry.
I couldn't believe it was,
I consider it the worst betrayal that ever,
ever happened to me in my life.
I couldn't believe that anyone
even could dream of such a thing.
I never knew it existed.
Did you recognize the information
that was contained in it
as anything that you would
ever talk to John Connolly about?
No. I asked the questions,
I got the answers.
I was the guy who did the directing,
they didn't direct me.
What are some of the things
they would give you
in terms of tips?
The thing that we needed most
of, number one, was wiretaps.
And then, like, photo surveillance,
search warrants
when they were coming,
indictments that were coming,
so guys could get a chance
to make a run for it.
Well, if you weren't providing
information to these people,
why were they willing to give you
all this information?
For money, for money.
Money's the common denominator.
It's a way of doing business.
It happens all the time,
it'll never stop.
I remember you told me once
that Christmas
- Is for kids and cops.
- Correct.
How many people would you be
paying off on a holiday period?
Everybody I knew I took care of
at Christmas time.
Put money in envelopes for all of
the different police. I had contacts
on the state police,
the Boston police, the ATF,
also in the FBI. There was more people
than John Connolly, but I'm not going
to say who they were. I would
never say anybody's name, you know.
But I took care of everybody.
And was this in cash?
Always cash.
I never handed anyone money,
I handed them an envelope,
makes it a little bit easier for them
to accept it, you know?
Or I put the money maybe in a box,
if it was that much money.
What was the most amount of money
you ever paid an FBI person, FBI agent?
- At one time?
- Yeah.
I don't know,
maybe 25,000, 50,000.
Everybody can be corrupted.
People who are of the opinion
that the FBI is above reproach...
Well, they're just regular people.
They put their pants on in the morning
just like everybody else.
They are regular people,
except they have a badge that says,
you know, "Special Agent."
But there's nothing special
about them, they are regular people.
If you find their weakness, or their needs,
or if they have a problem
and you can solve it for them,
you can corrupt them.
Maybe they like money, maybe
they like wine, maybe they like jewelry,
you know, trips, whatever.
There's always a way
to corrupt somebody.
Man: During a rapid-fire and sometimes
intense cross-examination,
disgraced former FBI supervisor
John Morris
admitted taking thousands
in cash from Bulger.
Man 2: Mr. Morris, you were Mr. Bulger's
paid FBI informant, weren't you?
Morris: That's not correct.
He did give me money,
but I was not his paid informant.
- Man 2: Gave you money?
- Morris: Yes.
- Man 2: Gave you gifts?
- Morris: Yes.
Man 2: You got a case of wine,
didn't you, from Mr. Connolly
- In the basement of the federal office?
- Morris: That's correct.
- Man 2: Did you throw it away?
- Morris: No, I kept it.
You know, seeing a day
like today where, it's not clear,
you see, you see thoroughly,
despicably corrupt FBI agents
like John Morris, a supervisor.
You know, with just a moral...
I mean, he was a moral coward.
Boeri: And you see him,
and you see Connolly taking advantage
of him in all his weakness,
to bring him into the group.
You see that, and you see
what was allowed.
And so, the real story here,
is that our government
enabled killers to run free
in this city, you know?
Bulger used to wake up
in South Boston,
and from South Boston
you can look across,
and he would say, "I own that town."
And he really did.
And he owned it because,
he was allowed to turn
the Federal Bureau of Investigation into
the Bulger Bureau of Investigation.
He put his tentacles into the Bureau
and he turned it into something
that worked for him.
And it was because they were all
crazed about getting the Mafia,
that they enabled the Irish Godfather
to run the show here.
And he was far more dangerous
than the Italians.
So what we need to do is get inside
a little bit and talk about
how the FBI works,
what the roles of certain people were
like Mr. Connolly and Mr. Morris.
And the more we can
keep you on the stand,
from my perspective the better,
because hopefully, it will be able to
really illustrate the effort you made,
so they see the good side
of law enforcement.
You recognized it was a problem, you
tried to do something to save lives,
and because they were
pursuing whatever agenda they were,
- They shut you down.
- Can I be candid with you?
I think the whole thing was a con.
I think at some point
they get in over their heads,
and their success was wrapped
around Bulger, to the point where he
had to be validated,
he had to be made
into this informant
that gave them all this information.
Brennan: That's the myth.
That's the myth.
Fitzpatrick: I had a fascinating career.
I worked organized crime,
I worked fugitives.
And in Mississippi, I had to work
the Ku Klux Klan, bombings.
And we ended
the bombings in Mississippi.
Then I was
transferred back to Memphis.
Martin Luther King came to Memphis
and I was told
that King had just been shot.
We found the gun
and through the fingerprints
we identified James Earl Ray,
and we arrested him in London.
In Miami, we developed a case
called ABSCAM.
ABSCAM turned out to be one of the
largest white-collar crime cases ever.
And we arrested senators,
a sitting senator.
So when I went back to headquarters,
and the Boston problem was going on,
I was told they needed somebody
with this background
to be sent to Boston. And my mission
was to find out what is going on
between the Mass State Police,
the Boston Police,
the local police, and the FBl,
and how come they're not
getting along together.
They had territorial issues.
The state police was blaming the FBI
for cavorting with criminals,
because they had seen Connolly and
Morris with Bulger and Flemmi.
So they formed the opinion that the
agents were doing something bad.
Well, as it turned out, they were.
But they didn't know it then,
and I didn't know it then.
So I go out and interview Bulger
and assess him, a suitability,
if you will.
I arrive at Bulger's place,
and met at the door by Bulger.
He's got a baseball cap on,
he's got sunglasses,
he's got a muscle shirt.
I hold out my paw, my hand,
and he doesn't take it.
Okay, you know. So I look at my
empty hand and I follow him in.
The place is dark. And we walk
in the back. I say, "Look, Bulger,
I'm here to find out what
you're doing for us.
What are you doing for us?"
And he gets angry. And about
that time, Connolly pops out.
And remember this was supposed to be
mano a mano, one-on-one.
And I get very angry. And I look over
and he says, "Hi, Fitzy, how you doing?"
And I'm saying to myself, "Oh,"
you know, "this does not look good."
But then we have
the conversation about him.
I finally get the conversation back.
And what he tells me is that
he's not an informant,
that he has his own informants, and that
he pays them, they don't pay him,
and that he's the head of a gang,
and that he runs the gang,
that he's not going to testify.
Now all those elements
are elements to me that I'm going to
close this guy as an informant.
If you're an informant for the FBI
and you're the head of the gang,
then the FBI is validating the gang.
You're actually part of the gang
and the management process.
So to me, he's a big problem.
Close him, get rid of him.
And that's what I go back
and tell my boss.
From that point on,
I get resistance.
I'm more or less told, "You shut up.
You're not allowed
to talk about this."
Murphy: I was a very young reporter,
but I had covered this huge Mafia trial
in Boston, it was the biggest ever.
It was, um... The FBI had planted a bug
in the north end headquarters
of a guy named Jerry Angiulo.
He was the underboss
of the Mafia,
and ran everything in Boston.
And he and his brothers,
the whole hierarchy went on trial,
it was an eight month trial.
And there was all this evidence
of murders, and corruption,
and they had tapes of Jerry Angiulo
bragging about murders.
But they also had him talking about,
"I have a couple of guys
that will do anything for us
named Whitey and Stevie,
they'll kill anyone we ask them to."
And so at the end of that trial,
it was a huge victory
for the FBI in Boston.
They had just wiped out
the New England family,
decimated them.
Yesterday, a federal grand jury
sitting at Boston
returned a 20 count indictment
charging seven individuals,
including Gennaro Angiulo.
Murphy: The Boston FBl,
they were heroes, and John Connolly
was at the heart of that, he was
the guy with the most informants
the most top echelon informants.
So as the Mafia is being decimated,
stepping into the vacuum
are Whitey Bulger and Steve Flemmi.
And I'm asking the New England
strike force leader, Jerry O'Sullivan,
why aren't you
going after Whitey and Stevie?
You've already done the Mafia
repeatedly, what about these guys?
And the answer is, "Oh, well,
they're not the threat
that the Mafia is, the Mafia
is an international organization,
Whitey's this local hoodlum.
We're the New England
Organized Crime Strike Force,
we go after the big guys."
Well, Whitey was
becoming the big fish.
Carney: Jim Bulger wants to explain
to the jury why for 25 years
he could be on top of the organized
crime pyramid in Boston,
and never once be charged
with a crime.
The chief of the Organized Crime
Strike Force, Jeremiah O'Sullivan,
promised him that he would not be
prosecuted for any federal crime,
if in turn, he did something
that the government wanted.
And that something
was not being an informant,
it was something else.
We've never revealed that information,
but Jim will at trial,
if Jim takes the stand.
Bulger: I had met secretly
with a high official
in the federal strike force,
Jerry O'Sullivan, United States Attorney.
He was concerned that someone
was going to kill him.
He says that he's in trouble,
and he needs help.
I felt bad for him, so I told him,
I says, "Look, I'll take care of this
for you, but I'm no spy.
We don't meet, I'll take care of it
my own way.
If you can accept that,
it'll be done."
Carney: What was O'Sullivan's
promise to you?
His promise to me was this.
He says, "Listen, Whitey,"
he says, "I feel better, I'm under
your umbrella of protection,
you're under mine," and he says,
"Any federal crimes or anything like that,
don't worry about it." He says,
"I'll always be in your corner
from this point on.
I'll protect you, you protect me."
And that was the way it went.
Bulger claims that he had
saved Jeremiah T. O'Sullivan
from imminent danger,
presumably from Mafia retaliation
for Jeremiah O'Sullivan's pursuit
of the Mafia and bringing it down,
and that his deal with Jeremiah
T. O'Sullivan was a personal one,
and he was going to
protect O'Sullivan in return
for being granted immunity
for crimes past and future.
John Connolly said that O'Sullivan
and Bulger pledged allegiance
to each other.
That's a pretty significant event,
an event by the way that was never
mentioned or even alluded to
in this trial. The government
didn't want it to be,
because then you would have
this very ironic situation
of the US Attorney's Office in Boston,
the very office
that is currently prosecuting
Whitey Bulger, had some kind of
corrupt relationship with Whitey Bulger,
that they're not being
totally forthcoming about.
The notion that a federal prosecutor
could tell an organized crime figure
that he could kill at will,
men and women,
rich and poor,
Boston, Florida, Oklahoma,
based on a personal promise
to guarantee his safety, is so absurd,
so ludicrous, we've run out
of words like "ludicrous"
and synonyms to describe it.
Woman: Today they call to the stand
former number two
in the FBI's Boston office,
Agent Bob Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick: Kind of upset over the fact
that this whole case
is predicated on a bunch of people
I tried to put in jail,
and the true story
is that the criminal justice system
has basically been co-opted
by Bulger, by Flemmi.
Now certain people
are culpable in the FBl,
but certain people are culpable
in the Department of Justice.
So I've got to go there
and present the truth.
Woman: Former FBI agent
Robert Fitzpatrick
started at the Boston office in 1981,
and said the atmosphere was tense.
As Assistant Special Agent
In Charge, Fitzpatrick
evaluated James Bulger's role
as an informant.
Fitzpatrick said Bulger surprised him
by saying he was not an FBI informant,
that he was never paid anything
by the FBI to provide information.
Fitzpatrick recommended
closing Bulger as an informant,
but headquarters
thought Bulger was too valuable
in its quest to bring down the Mafia.
After several hours on the stand,
prosecutors began a tough
cross-examination of Fitzpatrick.
First question?
Kelly: You're a man who likes to
make up stories, aren't you?
Fitzpatrick: No.
Kelly: Didn't you gratuitously claim
credit for arresting the mob boss
- Jerry Angiulo?
- Fitzpatrick: I did arrest him.
Kelly: Haven't you in fact pretended
that you were the one
who found the rifle that killed
Martin Luther King?
Fitzpatrick: I did find the rifle,
when I was at the scene.
Woman: At one point,
Assistant US Attorney Brian Kelly said,
"Are you on medication?"
Fitzpatrick said,
"Yes." Kelly said sarcastically,
"Does it affect your memory?"
"Not that I recall,"
replied Fitzpatrick,
as several people in court laughed.
Woman: How do you think you were
treated on the stand?
Not good.
What do you mean?
I thought the guy was very angry,
and I don't know why.
You know, it should've been
a lot more professional,
and I didn't feel that professionalism.
And plus, as a former law enforcement
officer working with these guys,
I should have had
a little more respect.
You know, I'm actually disgusted
in some sense, to be honest with you.
To hear Fitzpatrick
get grilled like that,
and not all the other agents?
I think it's garbage.
That's the first time that
the prosecution has cross-examined
anybody in that manner.
Other than that, they been up there
kissing everybody's ass.
All the dirty FBI agents,
all ex-mobsters.
Look at Morris, they didn't treat
Morris like Fitzpatrick.
These are the guys
they gave deals to.
Fitzpatrick tried to go out of his way
and do the right thing,
but he's still fighting for a pension.
Morris got a pension.
Kelly: With respect to my
cross-examination of Fitzpatrick,
I do think it was fair.
I think when people
come into federal court
and tell ridiculous stories,
they can expect to be confronted
aggressively with cross-examination.
That's the purpose
of cross-examination,
you try to expose
what isn't accurate.
Now Fitzpatrick was in fact
in the chain of command
at exactly the same time
all this crime and buffoonery
was occurring. And yet years later,
he wanted to distance himself
from it and pretend
he was trying to stop it.
English: Bob Fitzpatrick was one of
the first people to say
there's something rotten here,
and to try to call attention to it.
He's drummed out of the FBl,
now here he is at this trial,
and they really seek to destroy him,
they seek to humiliate him,
and it was very personal, because
when he comes in to trial to testify,
he is a rebuke to the entire system
and to everyone who stood back
for 20 years that Bulger was in
power and allowed it to happen.
And a lot of people were
complicit in that.
Brennan: It was a little bit tormenting
to watch Fitzpatrick get beat up.
It shows you that you're
either with the government,
and they'll accept, and guide,
and protect you
in any way they can, or you're
against the government,
and they'll try to destroy you.
We know that there was
a relationship between
the Department of Justice and
the success of James Bulger,
and nobody wants to tell that story.
They protected him for
their own reasons for decades,
and they're still lying about it.
At this trial, the United States
Attorney's Office has an exhibit.
It's a very important exhibit.
It is a memorandum
from the Special Agent In Charge
in the 1980s by the name
of Lawrence Sarhatt.
In this memorandum, Sarhatt says
that he had a conversation
with James Bulger when they met
at a hotel. And the government pretends
that this memorandum somehow shows
James Bulger is an informant.
So, during the trial
we learn information
that there's a secret safe
in the Boston SAC,
that's Special Agent in Charge's office
in the C3 unit of the FBl,
the criminal division, and in that safe,
supposedly documents will go into
and never come out again.
We also learned
that there was a secretary
who had worked for decades
in the Boston FBI.
She's 82 years old, and still working
for the Boston FBI.
So, she is the person who knows
whether or not a secret safe exists.
Brennan: When we called
this secretary as a witness,
mysteriously new documents appeared.
While they told the jury
and the public
- This is the truth at this trial...
- Man: At this trial.
what we learned
when we called the secretary
is there were other documents
that existed.
The same exact memo
that the government introduced
at this trial from the same person,
exact copy of it,
we learned that the memo
was not complete,
because there's
an observation section.
Mr. Sarhatt says, "I am not certain
that I am convinced
the informant is telling
the full story of his involvement.
Consideration should be given
to closing him
and making him a target."
So what do they do
with this information?
Well, the government at this trial,
leaves that part out until we expose it.
What else did they do with
the information back in 1980?
We'd learn from the secretary exactly
what they did with that information.
The actual memorandum
that was given to her,
she put in an envelope
by direction of Mr. Sarhatt,
and put in the safe.
And it says, "Strictly Eyes-Only."
Nobody other than the Special Agent
in Charge should see it.
And anytime a new Special Agent
In Charge would come in
and take the place of an old one
who was resigning or moving on,
she would tell them
about this document in the safe,
and it stayed in that safe
for generations
of Special Agents in Charge
when they took each other's spot.
And one Special Agent In Charge
said, "Get rid of this,
or we'll all get fired."
What could be so terrible
about this document
that they would lose their job?
That James Bulger was an informant?
Would that be so terrible
everybody would get fired?
Or that they knew
he wasn't an informant,
they knew that he
should've been targeted,
and he was being protected.
Kelly: The defense complaining
about the Sarhatt memo
is another desperate tactic by them,
which is another version of,
"Let's pretend,"
because they are pretending
they didn't have these documents,
which they did. There's nothing sinister
about it, it was disclosed.
They had it. And it didn't...
it didn't prove anything,
other than the fact that
there was a head of the FBI
who was concerned about
keeping Bulger open as an informant.
If anything, the Sarhatt memo
proves Bulger was an informant.
He sat with the head of
the Boston FBI for four hours
and gave them all sorts of information,
most of which was useless,
but in fact, he was
reporting it to the FBl,
and that makes him an informant.
Woman: The latest twist in the trial
of James Whitey Bulger.
Man: On Tuesday, Stephen Rakes was
dropped from the witness list.
Woman 2: Rakes had been set to testify,
but prosecutors told him he was
no longer needed to
take the stand.
Thirty years of torment, and
now it's coming to an end.
(phone ringing)
Hello. No, I haven't been
able to get...
I'm going by his house later
because I haven't been able
to get a hold of him or anything.
Yeah, he's probably
beside himself about it.
They took him off the witness list.
I tried calling him after court,
and his phone went right to voicemail.
I call him all day yesterday,
same, after court, same thing.
So, I'm going to go over.
I figure, give him
a little time to cool down.
Yeah.
(indistinct voice on phone)
Yeah.
Where?
I don't know, what was
the body described like?
That's him.
That's him.
Motherfucker.
I'm going by his house right now.
Yeah, I'll call you
right back, bye.
- He's dead.
- Woman: He's dead?
What, what?
What? What happened?
They found him on
the side of the road in Lincoln.
Woman: In Lincoln, Massachusetts?
Yeah.
Woman: Who's in Lincoln,
Massachusetts?
I gotta go by his house right now.
Woman: Who's in...
Oh, my God, no way.
Man: Stephen Rakes is a courthouse
regular, coming each day
to the Whitey Bulger trial, waiting
for the day when he would testify,
but Rakes would never
get that chance.
See the corruption?
Woman: Well, wait,
let's not jump to conclusions.
Let's say a prayer that he's okay.
- He's not here.
- Woman: Oh, my God.
- Woman: Is his car here, Stephen?
- No.
Woman: Oh, my God. Can you go
knock on the door and see?
Davis: I knew something was wrong,
because I talk to him every day,
we meet for coffee.
(ringing doorbell)
You know, and that's got
my stomach turned, thinking,
"Is anyone else in danger?"
With his testimony,
I used to say to him,
"Steve, what do you have to say?
I mean, what is it?"
"Oh, you'll see, you'll see.
Believe me, you'll see how deep
the people... you'll see."
Woman: Key witness in
the Whitey Bulger trial is dead.
Woman 2: A source tells CNN,
authorities called the death suspicious.
Man: We don't know what the cause
of death was, no sign of trauma.
Don't know if this was a suicide.
Man 2: It's a very suspicious death.
And the body is seven miles away
from where his automobile was,
and he did not have
any identification on him.
They'll probably say cause of
death was a heart attack,
an aneurysm, you know, and is it?
We'll never really know.
Do you believe what they tell you,
or did something really happen?
Do you trust your people that are
supposed to serve and protect
when you know
what we're living through,
and what's happened in this family?
What is the truth anymore,
and who do you believe?
Sometimes, you know, I wish
that this never happened.
This life... because all the hurt.
I've had a lot of hurt, Joe,
I mean, from...
I'm talking from... I can remember
far back as four or five years old.
I don't have any faith no more.
I want the truth.
This has tied me up for 32 years.
They say, you know, ease your pain.
And honestly, Joe, I got to tell you this,
and I say it with my throat,
I'd kill this cocksucker
if they ever let him go free,
and I'd tell the...
Tell the judge that and I wouldn't
give a fuck about going away for it.
This prick here is never gonna
run free, because I...
I mean it, I'd take him out.
Man: Prosecutors put former hit man
John Martorano on the stand
to prove that Bulger's reign
was murderous.
Woman: Martorano was perhaps
the most feared member
of Bulger's Winter Hill Gang.
...testified he was James Whitey
Bulger's chief executioner.
Man: Killing was routine.
In all, Martorano
murdered at least 20 people.
Woman: Martorano served
just 12 years in prison
as part of a deal
with federal prosecutors.
Man 2: The confessed murderer
was asked about a number of killings
he committed, including
the killing of Roger Wheeler,
the president of World Jai-Alai,
in Oklahoma.
Boeri: The Jai Alai murders are
the heart of this, because they show
how ugly and sordid
everything became.
This is shocking. He is killed
in daylight, at a country club,
while kids at the swimming pool
are watching.
Wyshak: And who was Roger Wheeler?
Martorano: He was the owner of Jai Alai,
World Jai Alai... it was a game.
Wyshak: Did that game
involve gambling?
Martorano: Yes.
Man: I never did like gambling.
But the Bank of Boston
brought him this Jai Alai deal.
And part of the deal,
because I kept asking him about this,
he said that the FBI
keeps it clean.
It's run by retired FBI agents
that specialized
in investigating organized crime,
and they keep the Mob out.
Boeri: So, Wheeler buys this company,
World Jai Alai.
Unbeknownst to him, it's infiltrated
by the Mob already,
connected to Winter Hill.
Weeks: World Jai Alai
hired John Callahan,
a friend of John Martorano,
as a president.
And they had H. Paul Rico
head of security.
And Rico was a corrupt
ex-FBI agent, and he had
and he had relationships
with Winter Hill.
Callahan is actually the architect who
first brought the scheme forward with Rico,
to kill Wheeler, and then
go to his widow and buy it,
buy World Jai Alai,
they would be the owners,
and the money was going to be
kicked back to Winter Hill.
Paul Rico'd resell it to the people back
up here that he was involved with before.
Martorano: Callahan... he asked me to
take out Roger Wheeler.
Wyshak: What was
your reaction to that?
Martorano: I couldn't do that
without everybody else on board.
Wyshak: And when you said you had
to get everybody else on board,
who did you mean?
Martorano: Whitey and Stevie.
They said they were on board,
whatever they could do
to help, they'd help.
Weeks: In the end of it, John
Martorano shot Wheeler in the head.
Cullen: There were honest FBI agents
in Oklahoma who wanted to get to
the bottom of the murder
of Roger Wheeler.
Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi
were implicated, and the FBI in Boston
lied to the FBI in Oklahoma.
They said Bulger and Flemmi
had nothing to do with it,
they have alibis, we've checked it out.
That was a lie. And murderers
went free because of it.
Man: You hold the FBI
as responsible as Bulger
for the death of your father?
More responsible.
The FBI has protected him,
they have supervised him,
and without the FBl,
my father would be alive today.
Next person that emerges
in this story is Brian Halloran.
Halloran is facing his own problems,
namely he's charged
with murdering a drug dealer.
He needs help.
And this is the typical system
of informants
and cooperating witnesses,
he wants to make a deal.
And so he comes forward,
and he can give up Whitey Bulger
and Stephen Flemmi he says,
because they were part of a plot
to kill Roger Wheeler.
So, Halloran is a threat
to Bulger and Flemmi.
They eliminate Halloran,
and in the process of eliminating him,
they kill Michael Donahue,
somebody he knew
from the neighborhood.
Woman: Of the 19
alleged murder victims,
their loved ones have become
fixtures at this trial and today,
Patricia Donahue took the stand.
Donahue: All I want to do is clear
my husband's name.
I did not want him associated with
the Mafia, with Whitey Bulger,
with Brian Halloran.
You know, he wasn't into that, he
didn't even know those people.
He was innocent,
he wasn't in trouble,
he wasn't a Mafia man,
he wasn't a killer.
Mike was 32 when he died.
He actually would've
been 33 in a week.
Whitey pulled the trigger,
but I blame the FBl, too.
They knew what was gonna happen.
(sirens in distance)
There goes Whitey.
- (woman laughing)
- That's funny.
- I'm serious, lookit.
- Woman: There's Whitey, people.
We'll see you in there, you lowlife.
Man: Michael Donahue was murdered
simply because he offered
a neighbor, Brian Halloran,
a ride home.
Unbeknownst to Michael Donahue,
Brian Halloran at the time
was cooperating with the FBl,
and was about to reveal
that James Bulger was involved
in the murder of Roger Wheeler.
Fitzpatrick: After the
Wheeler murder, Halloran comes in,
and he wants to talk.
We open him up as an informant,
and he begins telling us that this
was done by Bulger and Flemmi.
And so, I opened up murder cases
on Bulger and Flemmi.
Now you have to understand
something here.
Halloran is giving us the subject.
He's telling us this guy
is the killer of Wheeler,
Bulger is the killer of Wheeler.
That's a plus, that's a big plus.
They should be very happy,
they being the Department of Justice
and the Strike Force Chief
Jerry O'Sullivan.
And yet, they're not.
O'Sullivan said,
"No, I'm not gonna put Halloran
in a witness protection program."
Why not?
So I went over O'Sullivan's head.
I went to the United
States Attorney, Bill Weld.
And I said to Bill Weld,
"Bill, we got a problem.
I got an informant, Halloran, that's
gonna tell us who did this stuff.
And O'Sullivan is feeling
that he should not be
in the Witness Protection program."
I told Weld, he's gonna get whacked.
At the same time, John Morris
at the FBl, told John Connolly
that Brian Halloran was
revealing Bulger's involvement.
And Morris knew full well
that John Connolly
would convey that information
to Whitey Bulger. And he did.
Weeks: We received word from the FBI
that Brian Halloran
was cooperating with the FBI
about the Wheeler murder.
So Jim Bulger and Steve Flemmi,
myself and other people
go out looking for him.
One day we got word that Brian
Halloran was down the waterfront.
Michael Donahue happened to
have gone down to the pier
in South Boston to get fish
to use as bait
to take one of his sons on a fishing trip.
And he stopped to have a beer
on his way home. He ran into
Brian Halloran who was his neighbor.
He offered to give him a ride home.
So we went down the waterfront,
you know,
we got the hit car, weapons,
and everyone, you know.
He was geared up and stuff.
And I went down ahead,
I sat across the street and watched
to make sure Brian Halloran
was, in fact, there.
You know, when he started
coming out, I told Jim Bulger,
and Jim Bulger pulled up, and he shot
Brian Halloran and killed him.
Michael Donahue
was an unintended victim.
He wasn't supposed to be
getting killed, it was Brian Halloran
that we were going to kill.
But he hung around with Halloran.
You want to hang around
with gangsters and wise guys,
this is what happens.
Woman: Patricia Donahue has spent
the last 32 years raising three sons
without her husband Michael.
Today she finally faced his alleged killer,
James Whitey Bulger.
Donahue: It was Mother's Day, and Tommy
had just made his first Communion.
I was in the kitchen cooking.
A news bulletin came on the TV
about a gangland slaying.
I didn't pay any attention to it,
because I knew it didn't
concern me.
And I just so happened to look up
and see the car.
And I said, "I think that was his car."
I mean, I was hyperventilating,
I was, like, confused.
I'm thinking, "Oh my God,
where is he?
I need to be with him,
I don't want him to die alone,
I have so much stuff I want
to say to him," you know?
And, nobody came
until ten o'clock that night.
So when they took me
to the hospital finally,
he had already passed.
Within days of the killing, FBI agents,
they came to my house
and harassed me. Accused me of having
an affair with my husband's friend
that was staying with us
from out of town.
I mean, I was like," What?"
For months, they used to sit
outside my salon, you know.
They'd sit outside the house
and I'd say, "How you doing,
have you found out
any more information on my husband?"
"No, nothing yet."
And the whole time they knew.
And I was devastated
because I did not think
that the government was like that.
You know, you think you know them,
and you find out they're
not who you think they are.
Murphy: Bulger and Flemmi
are suspects,
now, not only in the Wheeler murder,
but in the Halloran
and Donahue murders.
And nothing happens. The FBI
decides to look for John Callahan,
"We need to question John Callahan,
he's the other guy
who was also implicated
in the murder of Roger Wheeler."
They're hunting for him to question him,
and then he's murdered.
Again, nothing happens.
The FBI in Boston,
who do they send out to question
Bulger and Flemmi?
John Connolly. Their handler.
Because we know he's objective, right?
The FBl,
they haven't been on our side
since the day they killed my father.
Took them four and a half hours
to come to my house to tell my mother,
my mother,
whether my father was dead or alive.
They covered up
the murder of my father,
helped pretty much set it up.
It's, it's, it's shameful, it's shameful.
I think the FBI is
worse than the Mafia.
They're the most organized
crime family on the planet,
who can do whatever they want,
change the laws when they want,
and they're not to be screwed with,
to be honest with you.
We've seen that first-hand.
Woman: Tell us what it was like
to be on the stand today
and look into Whitey Bulger's eyes.
Well, I looked right at him,
but of course he wouldn't look at me,
so as far as I'm concerned,
he's a coward.
He can kill people and not look the
victims in the face, that's a coward.
That's a coward.
You've been saying you're getting
more answers from his defense team...
I am, I am.
And then Jay Carney comes up,
and he asks you questions
that are really meant
to benefit Whitey.
Does that put you
in a strange position?
The questions that Carney
was asking my mother,
those are questions the government
should be asking my mother.
Did you notice the government stood up
and blocked every question they asked.
They don't want us to know anything.
It was blunt, right there.
Carney was asking questions
to help us,
and we were getting blocked
by the prosecution.
Where do we go here, folks?
Kelly: In the early 90s, when Fred and I
first started working on this case,
it was strange to us, to say the least,
that this individual, Bulger,
had been allowed to run amok
in the city of Boston for so long.
We suspected, as did many
other people in law enforcement,
that Bulger had some relationship
with the FBI
that was...
He was using to prevent
prosecution of himself.
It was in that atmosphere that we
began the case, and targeted him.
And we worked with Tom Foley,
also Tom Duffy from the state police,
who were very savvy investigators.
So what we decided to do was follow
the money, and we started targeting
a bottom line bookmaker
with some of the informants that we had.
We put up a bunch of wiretaps,
and we started climbing up
these bookmakers' organizations.
We went from low to mid,
up to the higher level bookmaker,
until we actually had the highest level,
where that bookmaker was doing
the hand-off to Bulger and Flemmi
as far as payments go.
It took Brian and I about
four or five years to get there.
By 1995, we had our first
racketeering indictment.
Back then, Fred took a lot of
hits over the years,
and we had the courage to go up
against the system, Brian Kelly too.
There was many, right inside the US
Attorney's office, that were in denial,
didn't want to see this
come forward. And they said,
"Well, we're going to wait, we'll do
a joint investigation with the FBI."
And I knew at that time
that this was another stall tactic.
And I told them that, I said,
"Okay, if that's the way
you want to go, but the state
police's position publicly
will be you had the opportunity to
indict him and you didn't indict him."
So, they went back and they had
another huddle with the US Attorney,
and they said, "Okay, the indictment,
we will indict him."
But they insisted that the FBI
participate in the arrest.
So state police targeted Flemmi.
The FBI said they'll take Bulger.
And then one night on January 5th,
we found Flemmi,
and we arrested him
on the streets of Boston.
And we arrested that same weekend,
John Martorano down in Florida.
And we notified the FBl,
"Okay, grab Bulger."
And, uh... that was the end of that.
They never had Bulger,
didn't know where he was.
And it was 16 years later before we
saw James Whitey Bulger again.
We expected that he was tipped
off, and we found out later that
that's what actually had happened.
One of the FBI agents in Boston
told John Connolly that
the indictments were coming down,
and he passed the information
along to Bulger.
After months of sitting in jail,
Stephen Flemmi realized the FBI
and John Connolly were not
coming to his rescue, and he
and he decided to out himself
and Bulger's FBI informants.
I'll never forget, when he
said he was an informant.
I went up to visit him the next day,
or a day later, I said to him,
I go, "Stevie, you're an informant,
you've been giving everybody up."
And he said to me,
"Why should I do another day
with all the information
I've given them people."
I looked at him.
Now I'm like,
"Okay, you know,
what's his next step?"
You know, who's he got left
to give up?
And he looked at me, he said, "Well,
we never said anything about you."
So I was on the phone talking to him
through the glass.
I took the phone and hung it up,
and I stood up, and I looked at him.
I says, "You couldn't say anything
about me."
I says, "Everything I did, I did with you."
I says, "You couldn't give me up
without giving yourself up."
Carney: Did you have any idea
that Flemmi was an informant
until he revealed it
in a court hearing in 1999?
Bulger: I didn't know that Stevie
did that there, I had no idea.
And when I heard it,
I was shocked.
I mean, Stevie was like my brother.
I mean, I was so close to him.
He fooled me, he fooled the Mafia,
he fooled Johnny, everybody.
I mean, I was shocked.
I never believed he would ever do
anything like that.
Did you ever have an instance
where Stevie provided
some information in your presence?
One time John Connolly asked him
a question and Stevie answered,
he gave a name. When I heard that
I brought the thing to a close,
and I told Steve, "C'mon, let's go."
And I start hollering at him
as we went down the stairs,
I told him,
"What the fuck did you do that for?"
I says, "We're paying, we're not saying.
We're buying, we're not selling."
Brennan: When Stephen Flemmi came out
and said he was an informant
and was granted immunity,
the government wanted to shut him up,
and John Connolly made the mistake
of coming in
and taking Steve Flemmi's side and
saying, "We did give him immunity.
The entire D.O.J. did it, you knew we were
doing it, that's what you told us to do.
You paid us to do it,
you gave us bonuses to do it."
At that point, the federal government
was either going to have to expose
all the corruptness
in the federal government,
all the murders, or they have to say
that John Connolly is a liar.
Man: John wouldn't play ball
with the prosecutors.
They then focused on John.
"Oh, okay, you don't want to play
ball with us, we'll show you."
And they then started
looking at John,
and made a case against John.
The government decided that the person
they really needed to get is Connolly,
that's the case
they're trying to make.
So John Martorano who had never met
John Connolly, never met him,
goes to them and says, "I can link
John Connolly to the Wheeler murder.
And I can link John Connolly
to the Callahan murder."
Man: The defendant John Connolly,
he's just another member of the gang.
They pay him money,
he gives them information.
English: They arrive at the conclusion
that Martorano is gold
as a witness and that he can
single-handedly help us
put away John Connolly
and maybe Jimmy Bulger
if Jimmy Bulger ever turns up.
Man: Who did you believe you were
going to be protecting,
by killing Callahan?
I was protecting myself,
Whitey Bulger, Stevie Flemmi,
and John Connolly.
McDonald: They need John Connolly
to be the scapegoat.
They've got to have
Connolly as the corrupt agent,
with respect to all
of what went on in Boston,
with respect to the top
echelon informant program,
they have to have someone to blame.
Why are you prosecuting Connolly
for the Callahan murder,
when you know
the killer is Martorano,
the guy who actually
pulled the trigger, for Pete's sake.
But they convicted John Connolly,
and then he was sentenced
for 40 years.
Kelly: Martorano's plea agreement has
been roundly criticized for good reason.
Most people think he should have
gotten more than 12 years,
and we're no exception to that view.
He is in fact a ruthless killer,
but at the time we had no evidence
of his killing. And when he pled
guilty he not only got more time,
but he also led to a series of events,
he made cooperation fashionable.
Man: Mr. Weeks, if you will
come forward, please.
I was arrested November 17, '99
and they were telling me
what it came down to,
make it really quick and simple,
is that it's a race.
It's either you or Stevie,
and you're going to get
the last seat on the bus,
but whichever one of youse
get up there first to make a deal
with the government
is going to get the best deal.
You know, what's Stevie gonna do?
Stevie's gonna give me up,
and say it was Kevin, and it was
this one and it was that one
that killed all these people,
it wasn't us.
You know, here's the bodies.
That's where they put them and stuff.
I said no, there's no way I'm
taking it up the ass for them.
So I made the deal first.
I figured you can't rat on a rat.
Kelly: Kevin Weeks, his plea was
a critical turning point in this case
because he literally led us
to the bodies, he brought us
to the burial grounds where we saw
for ourselves Bulger's handiwork.
Carney: Kevin Weeks, five murders,
he does five years.
John Martorano, for 20 murders
he got a sentence of 12 years,
plus they let him keep money,
keep property.
They got him a waiver of
the death penalty in Oklahoma,
and a waiver of the death penalty
in Florida.
They paid his commissary fees
while he was in prison,
and when he got out,
gave him a $20,000 check.
Man: A quarter of a million dollar
advance for selling the movie rights
to his life story,
$110,000 or something advance
for the book he co-wrote.
- Man 2: The state calls John Morris.
- Man 3: John Morris, please.
I would say the most scandalous deal
that the government made
was with one of their own
and that was John Morris,
who was John Connolly's
equally corrupt supervisor,
and who got people killed,
and he got no time, nothing.
John had told me
that these guys really like you
and if you ever needed anything
to just ask.
Man: John Morris is corrupt an FBI
official as one could possibly be,
not a minute in jail.
He's a wine consultant now.
I didn't want what happened to me
to happen to other agents.
Mr. Flemmi, if you'll stand up
and raise your right hand,
Linda will swear you in.
Flemmi wound up making his deal
when it was really too late
to get a good deal, so he wound up
getting a life sentence,
and now he's become kind of
a professional witness
for the government, and he's just a
windup doll who says what he believes
he needs to say so that
the government will give him
better accommodations in prison,
they'll do little things for him
that will make the fact that
he's spending the rest of his life
in prison a little more comfortable.
He's a pathetic creation
of the system at this point.
Carney: Do you see the defendant
Mr. Connolly in the courtroom?
I see him, yes.
Good-looking gentleman,
he's got a nice haircut.
I know him very well.
English: These guys, they're all
violating the gangster code.
They all became some version of
a rat by testifying against people.
They've all had to reconcile it
in their conscience
why they did this and they've
all created their little stories,
their own internal fictions,
of why they've had to do what they do.
Davis: The state of Massachusetts
has got more rats in it.
It's like an infested rat hole.
The Irish mob, every one of them,
They were stumbling over each other
just to rat.
They walk around talking big, tough guy
shit, and they're fucking rats.
The federal court right here,
doesn't it look like a mouse hole?
(laughing)
- Man: Good for rats, right?
- Yeah.
That's where all the rats go.
Woman: It was a tense reunion
18 years in the making.
Finally, James Whitey Bulger
and his partner Stephen
"The Rifleman" Flemmi were reunited
as Flemmi took the stand
against Bulger.
Man: Stephen Flemmi is considered to
be the most critical witness in this case.
Woman 2: In rapid-fire succession,
Flemmi described Bulger's
alleged role in a string of killings
during the 1970s
when both men were leaders
of the Winter Hill gang.
Boeri: Flemmi is under pressure,
they're talking about women.
Bulger is charged with strangling
Deborah Hussey and Debbie Davis.
The defense is trying to suggest
in fact, it was Flemmi.
Woman: Hank Brennan grilled
the government witness
on his sexual relationship with his
then girlfriend's teenage daughter
Deborah Hussey.
Woman 2: Flemmi said Deborah Hussey
turned into a drug user
and an embarrassment,
so they had to kill her.
Man: At Bulger's trial Friday,
Flemmi said Bulger murdered
Flemmi's girlfriend Deborah Davis
after the two men decided
she knew too much.
Woman: Flemmi claims Bulger
decided Davis had to be killed.
"I couldn't do it," Flemmi testified.
He said Bulger said,
"I'll take care of it, I'll do it."
He grabbed her around the throat,
and strangled her.
Davis: My sister, Debbie, she dated
Steve Flemmi for over nine years.
He gave her cars,
apartments, furniture, jewelry,
but he would never give her cash.
You know, he would give her
five, 10 bucks a day, and...
Cheap prick.
She loved him, she did love him.
But at one point she wanted to
get married, she wanted kids.
My sister wanted kids, and it was
just a rocky road from then on.
She said, "I'm leaving him,
I'm leaving Steve."
And I think Whitey
would've taken that as a threat.
You know, her taking secrets
or whatever with her.
Man: Flemmi became more
and more defensive,
and more and more resistant
to the questions
as Hank Brennan just cut into him.
Brennan: Were you combining the two
different versions in your testimony
in front of this jury to make amends
for your inconsistencies, Mr. Flemmi?
Flemmi: No, it was just probably
an inadvertent mistake on my part.
Brennan: Another inadvertent mistake
on this case?
Man: Flemmi is a well-rehearsed
witness now
because he's testified in three trials
and three civil proceedings.
In one court he says that Bulger
strangled her with a rope.
In another proceeding he said
he strangled her with his hands.
And then, in a third proceeding,
he said he thought that Bulger
had her in a headlock.
So, at the end of the day,
the inconsistencies, yes,
they're there, but do they
stop Bulger from being convicted?
It certainly does not look like
that is significant enough to do that.
Carney: Two of the charges against
you, Jim, are that you were involved
in the murder of
Deborah Hussey and Debbie Davis.
Did you have any involvement
in those two cases at all?
Bulger: No way. Those were
Stevie's girlfriends. That's his problem.
It had nothing
to do with me, nothing.
Carney: Do you feel he was fully capable
of committing these by himself?
Bulger: Christ. When one of the guys
asked him something about a murder,
he says, well, he's been involved
in so fucking many murders
he has to say to the guy
"Well, show me the list."
He needed a list to show him
what murder you're talking about.
I mean, this guy he is...
I think he's insane, myself, Stevie.
In the court he's glaring at me
and I'm looking at him thinking,
"Christ, Stevie, you're looking at me.
I never said a word against you.
I'm the injured party."
But he was like a puppet
for Wyshak, you know.
Cullen: Whitey Bulger cannot have people
think he murdered those two women.
And he cannot have people
think he was an informant.
This is not about getting acquitted,
this is about changing the narrative
back to the one he spent years cultivating.
And that narrative
is he is a good bad guy.
He is a gangster with scruples.
He is a criminal with standards.
And gangsters with scruples
do not murder women
and bury them in shallow graves.
And criminals with standards
don't turn on their friends.
(sirens wailing)
Woman: Today could end up being
an extremely interesting day
at the trial of James Whitey Bulger.
Woman 2: The big question is whether
or not Whitey himself will take the stand.
Man: Will James Whitey Bulger
take the stand?
Everybody's waiting on bated breath
to find out.
Man 2: My prediction
is he will testify.
He looks so bad if he doesn't.
Today's a big day
at the end of the case,
and I want to let him know that
we're with him and behind him
no matter what decision he makes.
If he wants to testify,
then we're 100 percent behind it.
If he doesn't, then I
totally understand as well.
Boeri: The defense was hoping
to present a defense of immunity,
that Bulger had been given immunity
by the former US Attorney.
But before the trial
they got the answer from this judge.
No, they couldn't, they were
stripped of that defense.
It's an interesting argument,
but it is somewhat convenient
to make the argument because
Jeremiah T. O'Sullivan is dead.
And there is no written evidence
that we've seen.
Man: In courtroom 11,
a moment of high drama.
Whitey's lawyer stood up and said,
"The defense rests."
Woman: Carney says Bulger
will not take the stand.
Man 2: When the judge asked if he
made that choice voluntarily,
he stunned everyone.
Man 3: "I'm making the choice
involuntarily," Bulger said.
Woman: Because I feel that I've
been choked off from having
an opportunity to give
an adequate defense and explain
about my conversation and agreement
with Jeremiah O'Sullivan.
Man 4: For my protection of his life,
in return he promised
to give me immunity."
Woman: And as Judge Casper said,
she already ruled Bulger's immunity claim
was inadmissible,
he said defiantly,
Man 5: "As far as I'm concerned,
I didn't get a fair trial
and this is a sham."
Man 6: "And do what youse
want with me.
That's it.
That's my final word."
Woman: At that point,
Patricia Donahue rose from her seat,
and yelled, "You're a coward."
I yelled out, "You're a coward,"
because that's what he is.
This man first claims
that he has immunity,
which he thinks gives him the right
to kill all these people.
And now he blames an unfair trial
on the Department of Justice.
Yet he won't get
on the stand and tell all.
If you think that the government
has done wrong by you,
then get up there and talk about it.
No comments.
- How do you feel about your chances?
- No comment.
Kelly: At the end of the day,
Bulger's immunity claim
was a ridiculous claim and when
he was given the chance to present it,
he didn't. His immunity claims were
part of his game of let's pretend.
Let's pretend I'm going to testify.
Let's pretend I have a license to kill.
Let's pretend I'm not an informant.
Brennan: So many people
have the opinion that,
the idea of whether he was an informant
or not is irrelevant,
and yet this is the central issue
in this case.
The reason why the informant status
is important is for a couple of reasons.
One, the government has an impression
to try and create for the public,
they want to present a theory
of minimal amount of corruption
that is quarantined with John Connolly,
based on a rogue agent theory
and an improper handler who formed
a relationship with James Bulger.
That's what they've been
trying to do for decades
in every litigation they've had.
It's not true.
The truth is that James Bulger
was not an informant.
And the reason why it's dangerous
for the Department of Justice
to recognize the fact
that he wasn't an informant
is that if Mr. Bulger was just paying
a dozen people on the FBl,
as he was, and headquarters
didn't do anything about it,
and the supervision wasn't there,
and they didn't do the yearly reports,
they didn't do the yearly reviews,
it then calls into question
all the affidavits that he's on.
It calls into question
all the convictions they had.
Think about the implications.
Think about what happened
in the 1980s.
The crown jewel of the Department
of Justice was to get the Italian Mafia.
They wanted to infiltrate
the headquarters of the Angiulo's
on Prince Street in the north end.
They needed affidavits,
And what did they do?
They used James Bulger's name
even though we now know that he
didn't give them any information.
Their own witnesses will admit that he
was simply added on to search warrants
and affidavits as a courtesy
to John Connolly.
So what would happen when
the federal government admits
that he wasn't part
of these search warrants?
Every attorney who represented every
mobster would sue the federal government.
They lose all their convictions,
they lose all the jail time,
and all the sentences.
All these accolades
that attorneys and lawyers
and FBI agents earned,
their reputations they earned,
would be gone.
They're not going to give that up,
and probably most importantly,
is the civil liability
to the families.
That's why you have this
resounding unrest with the
with the families.
They've lost loved ones
and at some point there has to be closure.
They are entitled to closure as citizens.
This government will give them
no closure because they have
this pretense they have to keep for
their own image that James Bulger
is an informant rather
than saying we sanctioned this,
not just with James Bulger,
we sanctioned organized crime figures
to go out and kill.
And we protected them
and we did it before, we did it here,
and we're going to do it again,
we have done it again.
They can't admit that.
So these families suffer over
and over and over again
with never getting the answer.
Are they going to overturn convictions
and let everybody go?
Are they going to be civilly liable
for their lies? Are they going to
prosecute themselves?
It's never going to happen.
So he has to be an informant.
Woman: Prosecutors and defense attorneys
for Boston mobster James Whitey Bulger
get their last chances today
to try to persuade jurors
in Bulger's murder
and racketeering trial.
WBUR's David Boeri joins us
this morning. Good morning.
Good morning, Deb.
Okay, now both sides get three hours
to sum up their cases.
What are they going to do
with all that time?
An extraordinary amount
of time, that's for sure.
And, as a matter of fact, the government
said it needed more time.
Wyshak: James Bulger is one of
the most vicious, violent,
and calculating criminals ever to
walk the streets of Boston.
It doesn't matter whether or not
Mr. Bulger was an FBI informant.
Whether he's an FBI informant or not,
he's guilty of murder.
Carney: There are three witnesses
to the murders,
Martorano, Weeks, Flemmi.
What I submit to you is
the critical issue in this case,
whether you can believe
Martorano, Weeks, and Flemmi
beyond a reasonable doubt.
Wyshak: This trial is not about
whether or not the FBI in Boston
was a mess. It's not a referendum
on whether or not Kevin Weeks
and John Martorano should be spending
the rest of their lives in jail.
It's about whether or not
the defendant is guilty of the crimes
charged in the indictment.
He's the one on trial here,
not the government,
not the FBl, James Bulger.
Brennan: We think about our
government as this institution,
this faceless organization.
Our government is not them,
our government is us.
At what point as citizens do we say,
"You know what,
there has to be accountability?"
You tell them that.
Boeri: I've been on this story
for so long, and I've never seen
such depravity in a courtroom.
We have a situation where
an institution of the government
decided that in order
to achieve a goal,
which was questionable at best,
they decided who was going to live,
and they decided
who was going to die.
And they empowered those people
that were carrying out terror,
they empowered them,
they gave them the run of the city.
That was lawlessness
by the government.
That is what we can never forget,
and that's why...
That's why I'm proud
to have done this story.
Because it's just, it's something
you can't forget.
And memory is really important.
You know, memory is a political act,
and I think as reporters
you got to keep the memory,
even if other people aren't.
Woman: The United States
v. James J. Bulger is over.
Man: This trial's been going on
for two months.
This jury has been deliberating
the last five days.
Woman: The jury has made a decision
in this case and we are waiting
to see exactly what it is.
Man: Whitey Bulger faces possible
maximum life in prison,
we say the caveat, this man
is 83 years of age.
Woman 2: Bulger is standing right now
in the courtroom
as he hears the words to count one
for racketeering conspiracy: guilty.
Woman 3: For count two, we're just
waiting here for word out of the courtroom,
that it is a guilty verdict as well
on count two.
Now within the second one
were all of these acts,
that include all of the acts of murder.
Racketeering act number one,
that was not proven.
Man: For racketeering act number two
we're hearing that is not proved.
Racketeering act number three,
not proved.
Number four, not proved.
Five, not proved.
Woman: Narcotics
distribution conspiracy.
Man 2: That is proved.
Woman: The extortion of Stephen
Stippo Rakes and Julie Rakes.
Man: We're waiting on this.
That is proved.
Man 2: The conspiracy to murder
Roger Wheeler: proved.
Man 3: The murder of John Callahan
is also proved.
Man 4: Next the murder
of Brian Halloran: proved.
Woman: Then we have the murder
of Michael Donahue.
Man: Proved.
Murder of Deborah Hussey.
Man 2: Proved.
Woman: The next one,
very important for Stephen Davis,
the murder of Deborah Davis,
no finding.
Man: Whitey Bulger was convicted
on 31 out of 32 counts
of racketeering, conspiracy,
murder, extortion,
and other charges.
Woman: But the jury found that
the government only proved
the murders of 11 of Bulger's
19 alleged victims.
Alright, let's just do
the jury convicted Bulger of...
It's 31, they acquitted him
of one count.
With the conviction of James Bulger,
we hope that we stand here today
to mark the end of an era
that was very ugly
in Boston's history.
English: As theater,
the trial delivered, but ultimately
it was a disappointment to me.
Those of us journalists,
interested parties who've been following
the Bulger story for decades,
we kind of hoped this trial
would be a final accounting
of the Bulger era, of all the things
that made Bulger possible.
I think it fell far short in that regard.
This case let people know that
no matter how politically connected
one is, or how one may have
ins with law enforcement,
it doesn't stop us
from prosecuting you.
And, in fact, Bulger's reign of terror
was only brought to an end
because they were honest members
of law enforcement who persisted,
and who were not deterred by less
than honest members of law enforcement.
And as a result, an awful and evil man
is going to jail for the rest of his life.
Bulger: Jesus Christ almighty,
this is baloney
and that's why I says "This is a sham trial."
I think the feds have the green light,
nobody ever checks on them,
the media is not there,
like they would like the public
to believe they are.
These reporters are hand fed stuff from
FBI agents, then they write crime stories.
They write books and everything else,
they're hand and fist with them.
The one thing they all know is it works.
It works, it gets convictions.
There's no lessons learned.
You can't get a fair trial,
you can't get a fair hearing.
This system here, it isn't gonna change,
it isn't gonna change,
it'll never change.
Whitey Bulger is a vicious,
venal murderer.
But he was enabled by the FBI.
And the FBI was enabled
by the Justice Department.
And to this day, the Justice Department,
as far as I'm concerned, was engaged
in a cover-up to minimize the extent
of FBI corruption.
There were a dozen guys
you could have made cases against.
The idea that John Connolly
is the only guy convicted in this,
is a joke.
To know that this is how you're
treated as an American citizen,
when FBI agents protect killers and
come and take your loved one's life.
You could be sitting here.
Don't you want to know
what really went on?
Why they really did it?
Weeks: If everybody told the truth,
everything would come together.
But everybody fashions things to
benefit themselves, which is,
which is natural, I guess.
But everybody is trying to
twist the story a little bit.
No one's really going to know the truth
until everybody starts telling the truth.
That's what it comes down to.
People are going to have to
come to their own conclusions.
You know, there's going to be
people out there that believe
that Jim Bulger was an informant.
There's going to be
people on the other side that
say he wasn't an informant.
People are going to say he
didn't murder women.
Other people will say
he did murder women.
So the true story
will never be known.
Today was a good day
for a lot of families,
but today also wasn't a good day
for a lot of families.
My heart goes out to them and I would
like to do a cheers for them,
and we will not forget you.
(applause)
One person who
should be here,
how about we give a nice cheers
to Stevie Rakes.
Rakes: Yes,
I hold the FBI responsible.
Good God, they protected this man,
now, you know, years later we find out
everything that he's been doing
and getting away with it.
Listen, it takes a, it takes
a village to raise a child.
For all the destruction that this
Bulger and Flemmi have done,
it would take a battalion
to cover it up.
So where are they all?