'Rifleman': Whitey, Stevie were kings of the scam
Blackfriars massacre shocked the city in ’78
Second of three excerpts from Howie Carr’s new book, “Rifleman: The Untold Story of Stevie Flemmi, Whitey Bulger’s Partner.”
by Howie Carr/Bostonb Herald 4/9/13
Gangster Stevie “the Rifleman” Flemmi is due back in Boston in June to testify in his longtime underworld partner Whitey Bulger’s federal murder trial. In today’s excerpt from my new book, “Rifleman,” based on Flemmi’s 2003 confessions, he details some of Whitey’s scams:
In June 1978 Whitey pulled off one of his boldest scams, after five men were murdered in a Summer Street cocaine den known as Blackfriars.
Flemmi had ties to the place through its owner, Vincent Solmonte. Flemmi had even gotten one of his girlfriends, Marilyn DiSilva, a job there. The night of the murders, he and DiSilva stopped by Blackfriars. But then Flemmi saw “BARBOZA associate Nick FEMIA in the club, and had gotten a sense that something was amiss. FLEMMI convinced DISILVA to leave the club with him, probably saving her life.”
(DiSilva, on the other hand, has told reporters that Stevie called her that night and told her not to go to the club — one of many instances in Flemmi’s debriefings where his testimony is contradicted by other witnesses.)
The next morning the city awoke to the news of the slayings of five men in Blackfriars, among them owner Solmonte and former Ch. 7 reporter Jack Kelly.
Whitey called his own personal FBI agent Zip Connolly, now serving 40 years for murder, to get the BPD’s crime-scene photos.
“BULGER wanted the photos both for his own curiosity, and to be used on a scam to be perpetrated on (a Boston businessman) whom Whitey knew had owed $60,000 to the deceased Blackfriars owner.”
That afternoon, Whitey went to the businessman’s office, announced that he did the Blackfriars murders, and said the businessman now owed him the $60,000. When the businessman balked, Whitey laid out the crime-scene photos on the man’s desk, saying he had taken them himself. “Terrified, (the businessman) promptly paid the money.”
It was a brazen grift. But then, as Richie Castucci told the FBI a few months before he was killed in 1976, “he is a vicious animal who will not take ‘no’ for an answer.”
Although Bulger was convicted of robbing only four banks in the 1950s, he bragged to Flemmi that he had actually held up 17 banks during his 1955 crime spree, and that he was still spending some of that stolen loot well into the 1970s.
Both the Rifleman and Whitey were known as extreme cheapskates. Frank Salemme, an early partner of Flemmi, called the pair “squirrels.” He also called them “jackals,” for the way they bullied others.
Some cons the gang ran repeatedly, Flemmi said. One was to summon someone operating on the fringes of the law, say a shady businessman or a drug dealer, to the second floor of their Lower End bar, Triple O’s — the word was out they had committed murders there. The dodgy character would be told that some unnamed party had given the gang a contract on him. But it could be “straightened out,” for, oh, $50,000.
Another scam was to fire shots at the home of a bookie late at night. The next morning, Stevie or Whitey would call the bookie to commiserate, and ask if he needed “protection.” Those cons might be worth a $25,000 down payment, and $300 a month from then on.
Four years after Blackfriars, the gang murdered a businessman “wannabe” named John Callahan, the last of the gang’s four World Jai Alai murders. Soon after Callahan’s body was found, the gang learned Callahan had secret bank accounts in Switzerland worth up to $600,000.
Callahan’s business partner was brought to the second floor of Triple O’s.
“FLEMMI and BULGER demanded money that they claimed Winter Hill had invested with CALLAHAN. (It was a lie.) FLEMMI said that (the businessman) was threatened with a replica Thompson machine gun and was clearly frightened.”
He flew to Switzerland and emptied out Callahan’s accounts. He then gave the cash to the gang, who split it up, each one getting $60,000 cash.
However, the businessman was soon subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury investigating the World Jai Alai murders. He knew he would have to answer questions about his furtive trips to the Swiss banks.
“FLEMMI stated that (the businessman) was instructed to tell the grand jury that Bucky BARRETT had been the one who had gotten money from CALLAHAN’s bank accounts.”
Bucky Barrett was a burglar Whitey and Stevie had murdered a few months earlier, after stealing more than $100,000 from him. At the time Barrett was officially “missing,” although he was already dead and buried in the basement of a small house on East Third Street in Southie.
“FLEMMI also confirmed that (the businessman) was shown a picture of Barrett so that he could intelligently describe BARRETT. FLEMMI ... believed that the picture came from BULGER.”
One thing Stevie always wanted the cops to know: “BULGER was in control. He made all the decisions.” And why, Stevie was asked, did he take over the gang?
“Because of his management abilities.”
Tomorrow: Stevie Flemmi and H. Paul Rico, the most corrupt agent in FBI history.
‘Rifleman’: Agent Rico and Stevie like blood brothers
FBI always had a place for the thug
By Howie Carr April 10, 2013
The final excerpt from Howie Carr’s new book, “Rifleman: The Untold Story of Stevie Flemmi, Whitey Bulger’s Partner.”
Gangster Stevie “the Rifleman” Flemmi is due in Boston in June to testify in his longtime underworld partner Whitey Bulger’s federal murder trial. In today’s excerpt from my new book, “Rifleman,” based on Flemmi’s 2003 confession, he details some of his dealings with corrupt FBI agent H. Paul Rico:
When they first met in 1958, Rico was a young FBI agent and Flemmi was an up-and-coming hoodlum. Pretty soon they were, you might say, thick as thieves.
Rico is best-known for the congressional testimony he gave in 1997 about the FBI’s 1968 framing of four Boston underworld figures for a murder they did not commit. All four served more than 30 years in prison. Two died there.
“Whaddaya want from me, tears?” Rico told a congressman.
But that was just one facet of his incredibly corrupt career, much of which involved Flemmi.
Rico hated the McLaughlin gang of Charlestown. In the early 1960s, the FBI had tapped their phones, and picked up disparaging comments about the alleged sexual practices of Rico and his bosses, J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson. Edward “Punchy” McLaughlin had also threatened the brother of Dennis Condon, Rico’s partner in the FBI.
George McLaughlin in 1965 was a fugitive, on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for the murder of a Roxbury bank teller. Flemmi picks up the story:
“Just prior to George MCLAUGHLIN’s arrest … RICO asked FLEMMI for a throwdown handgun. Rico explained that the agents were about to arrest MCLAUGHLIN (and were) planning on shooting MCLAUGHLIN as they took him into custody. The agents were going to plant the gun on a dresser next to MCLAUGHLIN and claim that he had reached for the weapon (and they had fired back) in self-defense.”
Flemmi gave Rico an untraceable .38 caliber revolver. The next day, McLaughlin was arrested, without any fanfare. Flemmi was puzzled.
“RICO explained to FLEMMI that there were five agents involved in the arrest, but that while four were in agreement to kill MCLAUGHLIN, the group was uncertain about a fifth agent ... and the plan was dropped. FLEMMI added that RICO never returned the firearm to him.”
Another time, Rico gave the Dorchester address of two McLaughlin hoodlums to Buddy McLean’s Winter Hill gang.
“FLEMMI noted that this information was of a particular interest to the MCLEAN group because the Dorchester neighborhood was unknown territory for the (Somerville) gang, which would have made surveillance on these two MCLAUGHLIN associates very difficult.”
Armed with Rico’s information, the Hill quickly rubbed out the two McLaughlin gunsels.
Perhaps Rico’s greatest assistance came in Flemmi’s 1965 murder of Punchy McLaughlin, the leader of the Charlestown crew. He had already been shot several times, and one of his hands had been amputated after an ambush in Canton. He could no longer drive, but his girlfriend took him every morning to the Spring Street MBTA station in West Roxbury, to catch a bus to his brother George’s murder trial downtown.
Rico passed this on to Flemmi. “RICO then said that he wouldn’t be working the following day, and was going golfing. FLEMMI recalled that RICO then took a make-believe golf swing.” Flemmi murdered Punchy the next day as he boarded the bus.
“FLEMMI added that when next he saw RICO, the FBI agent made the comment, ‘Good shooting’ or ‘Nice shooting.’”
Thirty-two years later, Chairman Dan Burton (R-IN) asked Rico about Flemmi.
Burton: “Did you know he was a killer?”
Rico: “No.”
Rico retired and went to work for World Jai Alai in Miami. Soon he was conspiring to kill his boss, Roger Wheeler. He recruited Flemmi and Whitey Bulger, as well as Johnny Martorano and Joe McDonald, two Winter Hill fugitives also living in Florida.
McDonald agreed to participate, because 20 years earlier, Rico had helped his late partner, Buddy McLean, set up yet another gangster who had been trying to kill McLean. After the murder, Rico had allowed McLean to hide in his home in Belmont for several days. Now Rico, the FBI agent, was calling in the 20-year-old chit.
After Wheeler’s murder, Tulsa Police Detective Mike Huff flew to Miami to interview Rico.
“I went down there expecting to sit down with a fellow law-enforcement professional,” he recalled later. “I find myself sitting across the table from The Godfather.”
A few months after Rico orchestrated the World Jai Alai murders, the FBI had a job for him. They needed an agent who could pass himself off as a gangster. Rico was their guy. As a result, a federal judge in Florida was impeached in the House and convicted in the U.S. Senate. Rico received a citation.
But by 2003, both Martorano and Flemmi had pleaded guilty to Wheeler’s murder, and testified against Rico. Huff had the honor of making the arrest. When the police first appeared at his posh lakefront condo, Rico was dressed in madras pants and a cardigan World Jai Alai sweater. When Huff produced the handcuffs, Rico’s jaw dropped and he soiled his pants in terror. He was dead a few weeks later in a prison hospital in Tulsa, under guard, alone. He was 78.