Howie Carr Thread Apr 1-15, 2013

Wed column ping

Carr: Win this one for all of the double-dippers

Wednesday, April 3, 2013
By: Howie Carr

Double-dipper — few other things drive voters into such a frenzy as the thought of some payroll patriot collecting not one, but two paychecks, at least one of them from the taxpayers themselves.

I mean, it’s one thing to feed at the public trough. It’s something else altogether to lick the plate.

It looked like we were going to have two double-dippers in the Boston mayor’s race. But now state Rep. Marty Walsh says he is giving up his $167,911-a-year job as secretary/treasurer of the Boston Building and Construction Trades Council “within the next 10 days.”

And how about the $38,750 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee that your fellow pinky-rings gave you?

“That’s going, too,” he said. “Everything with the job, gone. I’m going to have to buy a car — I’ve owned one before, I just don’t have one of my own right now.”

Good Lord, it sounds like he’s trying to channel Ray Flynn circa 1983.

“What color was that station wagon of his, red?”

I seem to remember it as being brown — rust brown. Mostly rust, not so much brown.

Of course, Walsh didn’t have much choice in the matter if he wanted to run. Last year, the Herald’s Joe Battenfeld called him out on his work for Granny Warren while collecting both the union salary and his House chairman’s pay of $67,000.

“I’m not part of that 1 percent,” Walsh said then.

No, Marty, you were more like part of that one-half of 1 percent. At least then.

Then there is Jim Rooney, boss of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. Word is that he’s been calling around to the “business community,” whatever that means in Boston these days. His current pay is $257,500 a year. He also collects a pension from the MBTA. His flack didn’t get back to me with the current number on that one, but in 2001 the T kiss in the mail was $68,000 a year.

At the age of 43.

Between the MBTA, the MCCA and chief of staff for Mumbles at City Hall, it would seem that Rooney has spent a lot more time in the hackerama than in the Dreaded Private Sector. And by the way, his current salary is down from what he made in 2011 — $377,000, including $114,000 in “bonuses” from 2009 and 2010. Gotta love those public-sector bonuses.

But I rather doubt Rooney’s going to run. I left him a message asking the question, and repeated the request to his flack, who said, “I passed on your request to Jim.” When the phone didn’t ring, I knew it was Rooney.

Oh well, so it looks like no double-dippers in the fight. That’s OK, I’ll find other things to write about. Anyone know exactly how tall Rob Consalvo is?

Thu column ping

Not the Spotlight they sought

Thursday, April 4, 2013
Howie Carr

For once, I have to agree with Mumbles. The latest Globe Spotlight series about Boston cabs was “too long,” and I didn’t read it either.

Which is why I didn’t know until yesterday that the “undercover” Globe reporter/taxi driver got into a big smashup at Stuart and Clarendon streets last November. Even more damning, before the scribe and his two passengers were transported to the hospital, he gave the cops a story that he later had to, ahem, “correct a factual flaw in.”

Is correcting a factual flaw anything like changing your story?

And now these “crack” journalists have neglected to print the other side of the story, from the other driver. Not giving both sides of the story — what did the Globe think, that it was still misreporting on Granny Warren’s alleged Indian heritage?

But the bow-tied bumkissers should look on the bright side of this fiasco. At least this one Globe story wasn’t made up, or plagiarized. The accident really happened, believe it or not.

What you have to understand about this Spotlight series is that the Globe was trolling, once more, for a Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. As Alexander Cockburn (a noted lefty) once observed, these awards invariably go to “stories you haven’t read, about issues you don’t care about.”

This is where the length comes in handy, no matter what Mumbles thinks. These interminable series are delivered to the Pulitzer judges’ doorsteps in wheelbarrows, and the judges’ spirits sink as they contemplate actually having to read volumes of such dreck. The only alternative is to … just give them the damn prize. That way no one will call you on not reading it. In addition to being long and boring, the winning Pulitzer Public Service entry must be Politically Correct. God forbid the Globe should try to shine its nickel-and-dime flashlight on, say, EBT-card abuse. Too mean-spirited.

From a PC viewpoint, the great thing about Boston cabbies is that most of the drivers are “immigrants.” Thanks for pointing that out, Globe, we never would have known otherwise.

The Globe said the reporter/hack “revealed his identity” to his passengers. Did he really have to? I’m guessing his ascot gave him away, or when he first asked them, “Where to, old chaps?”

The CEO of Boston Cab asked a good question: “Who knows what he’s doing — while he’s out there, he’s not a professional cab driver.”

Or working on his resume? You do understand that on Morrissey Boulevard, the end is near. The Globe theme song is, “Any day now.”

As of yesterday, the throne-sniffers hadn’t deigned to print a correction, or even a clarification, admitting that the other guy is blaming the Globe reporter’s Ted Kennedy-esque driving.

They can’t, because if the Pulitzer judges see that, they won’t have to even pretend to read  the series before they dismiss it.

Fri column ping. btw the new and improved howiecarrshow.com has several Howie columns posted, etc. I may still post em here though so you'll get em in advance, or at least link to the Herald site. anyway:

Carr: Pols’ tax battle  not free for all
Friday, April 5, 2013
Howie Carr

Finally, some good news out of the State House — the Democratic Legislature and the Democratic governor are throwing roundhouses at one another.

As they used to say about the Iran-Iraq war, Isn’t there some way they can both lose?

Unfortunately, no. Here’s the dispute in a nutshell: Gov. Deval Patrick wants to extract $1.9 billion from the working classes. The legislative leadership says “only” $500 million will suffice. For now.

As the governor said yesterday of the general court’s tax hike: “Everybody pays more and gets less.”

Deval’s plan is that everybody pays more and more and more and gets less.

The governor and his hackerama are so desperate for more money that Deval immediately issued an empty threat to veto the legislation. Ask Mitt Romney how those work out.

Republican lawmakers proposed a no-new-taxes bailout of the transportation system. But the GOP plan has three chances — slim, fat and none.

“Today’s events on Beacon Hill,” said state Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester), “clearly illustrate the situation we’re in.”

Yes, they do. In 12-step terms, Speaker DeLeo is a problem taxer. Deval is a full-blown taxaholic. Both of them need to go on the wagon.

This fight has been brewing for a while now, since DeLeo reportedly described Deval’s tax-’em-back-to-the-Stone-Age scheme as “fantasyland.” I’d say “hallucination-land” is more like it.

Among other things, Deval wants billions for worthless new rail lines, from Boston to Fall River and New Bedford and from Pittsfield to New York (you can’t make this stuff up).

Plus $350 million more for the department formerly run by a moonlighting, $200,000-a-year hack from New Haven whose minions couldn’t be bothered to check if sex offenders were living at the same addresses as day-care centers.

Deval immediately dusted off his pal Obama’s sequester playbook. The sky is falling, the sky is falling! Take hostages! Obama says, Give me the money or the cancer patients get it! Deval says, Give me the money or the T gets it!

DeLeo said, “Our plan is more responsive to the needs of the middle class.”

That’s exactly the problem, as far as Deval is concerned. He wants to raise the income tax, which is a burden on people who work, in order to cut the sales tax, which is paid even by Deval’s EBT-cardholders.

Three days ago, a Republican was elected to the House from Peabody for the first time since 1990. Leah Cole, a 24-year-old nurse, knocked on 3,000 doors in her campaign. I asked her what the No. 1  issue was among the voters she talked to.

“Taxes,” she said.

But that’s Peabody. Beacon Hill isn’t in Peabody, it’s in Boston.

Sun column ping

Cruel founding fathers
This 8th amendment twist is a bit unusual Sun Apr 7, 2013...by Howie Carr

Add the name of Michelle Lynne (ne Robert) Kosilek to the list of modern phenomena the Founding Fathers would definitely not appreciate being blamed for.

Little did they know what havoc they would someday wreak by adding the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution to prohibit “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Now comes Kosilek, a convicted wife murderer doing life without parole. He/she is claiming that it would be cruel and unusual punishment to deny him/her a sex-change operation — excuse me, “gender-reassignment surgery.”

Not to get too graphic, but Kosilek is begging for elective amputation of a body part. Yes, that body part. Remember, the Eighth Amendment prohibits “inflicting” cruel and unusual punishment. An infliction is exactly the right word for what he/she is petitioning the court for.

As a lawyer for the state said last week, “This expands the Eighth Amendment to new heights.”

New heights? Surely he meant to say, new depths.

And it gets even more bizarre. A federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan has signed off on this infliction, and ordered payment of $724,000 to Kosilek’s pro-bono lawyers.

Odder still, the legal team desperately fighting to stop this latest slap in the face to common sense and the taxpayers works for a moonbat Democrat governor who began his own legal career filing frivolous lawsuits against prison officials in Maryland.

But it appears that Michelle Lynne Kosilek is a bridge too far even for ultra-Politically Correct Deval Patrick.

You may recall that back in the ’90s, wife-strangler Kosilek was “diagnosed” with a trendy new malady called gender identity disorder. Knowing full well the type of bleeding-heart crackpots who sit on the bench in Massachusetts, the Department of Correction signed off on psychotherapy, female hormone treatments, laser hair removal, etc.

Just not the ultimate cruel and unusual punishment. So Kosilek sued and prevailed in federal district court. Now the state is appealing to the First Circuit.

By the way, despite Kosilek’s alleged anguish and suffering, he/she has not tried to commit suicide.

Here is what Judge Mark Wolf wrote when ordering the sex-change operation, and if Ronald Reagan could read what his appointee wrote, James Madison wouldn’t be the only one turning over in his grave.

“There is no less intrusive means to correct the prolonged violation of Kosilek’s Eighth Amendment right to adequate medical care.”

After Kosilek gets the sex change, what’s to stop her (what other word can you use at that point?) from turning around and re-suing the DOC for violating her Eighth Amendment rights by allowing the operation? After all, didn’t the ACLU et al. go bonkers in Kansas when the legislature merely tried to impose chemical castration on convicted sex-offenders?

To top it all off, Judge Wolf issued a not-so-veiled threat to the state and Deval:

“Resistance at all costs could end up costing the taxpayers quite a lot. The defendant, up to the governor, should consider whether it’s in the public’s interest to do that.”

In other words, resistance is futile. And behind Kosilek a queue of other DOC inmates are reportedly lining up for their own one-way “gender reassignments” to MCI-Framingham. Thanks a lot, President Madison.

column

Mon column ping (the column here contains a video and some pictures)

‘Rifleman’: Flemmi thought about killing his pal Whitey
Victims of gangsters’ bloody reign Monday, April 8, 2013 By: Howie Carr

First of three excerpts from Howie Carr’s new book, “Rifleman: The Untold Story of Stevie Flemmi, Whitey Bulger’s Partner.”

Gangster Stevie “the Rifleman” Flemmi will return to Boston for one final cameo in June, for his longtime underworld partner Whitey Bulger’s murder trial in federal court. There’s no love lost between these two, and in today’s excerpt, Flemmi claims he thought about killing Whitey.

Testifying against Bulger will have to do. Prosecutors will want Flemmi to hang a string of murders — including his two girlfriends, Debbie Davis and Debra Hussey — on Whitey. The defense will try to pin them on Flemmi alone.

At age 78, Flemmi is doing life at an undisclosed prison after confessing to 10 murders, and taking the Fifth on 10 others.

After his 2003 conviction, Stevie detailed his 40-year criminal career to feds and cops from three states. That document is the basis of Howie Carr’s “Rifleman.” What follows is a partial list of Flemmi’s explanations — or rationalizations — for why he, Whitey and other Boston mobsters killed:

Debbie Davis, 26, Flemmi’s longtime girlfriend, strangled by Whitey in 1981:

Flemmi had met Davis shortly after his return from “the lam” in 1974. Flemmi and Davis lived together, but over the years their relationship deteriorated, as Flemmi began sexually abusing Davis’ 14-year-old sister Melissa.

To patch things up, one night Stevie took Davis to the Bay Tower Room on State Street. But he was called away and Davis, suspicious that he was going to see another woman, asked him why he had to leave so suddenly.

“He admitted out of frustration that he was going to see an FBI agent (John CONNOLLY), who was a friend of BULGER’s. BULGER was very angry when he learned from FLEMMI that Ms. DAVIS was now aware of their relationship” with Connolly.

“FLEMMI stated the problems with Ms. Davis were also affecting his relationship with BULGER. FLEMMI said that BULGER didn’t like Ms. DAVIS, and wasn’t very skilled in his relationships with women. As FLEMMI’s romance with Ms. DAVIS cooled, BULGER insisted that Ms. DAVIS had to be eliminated because of her knowledge.”

“FLEMMI said that he finally assented to BULGER’s demands and allowed BULGER to plan the murder.” Flemmi says he “was under a great deal of stress” when he lured her to his parents’ house across a courtyard from Senate President Billy Bulger’s home. Whitey was waiting inside, on the Flemmis’ sun porch, to murder her. Strangling the beauty was a pleasure for Whitey, Flemmi says, and while she was being buried on Tenean Beach, Flemmi claimed, “he contemplated killing BULGER.”

Later Flemmi told hitman Johnny Martorano that he himself had “accidentally” strangled Davis — a statement Flemmi denied making in his confession.

Debra Hussey, 26, Flemmi’s common-law stepdaughter with whom he had been having sex since she was 14, strangled by Whitey in 1985:

This was another “very difficult and emotionally draining” murder for Flemmi. But like Davis, Hussey was “often disrespectful to BULGER.” And, Flemmi added, she was doing “a lot of things … which I didn’t approve of.”

Hussey was using heroin, turning tricks and “sometimes even brought home black male prostitution clients to the family’s residence (in Milton), which caused FLEMMI additional embarrassment.”

Flemmi’s confession continues: “Eventually he and BULGER had had enough and decided to kill her.”

Flemmi said the actual strangulation was committed by Whitey, “although he (Flemmi) may have twisted her light beige sweater around her neck, while stripping her body” and also pulling out her teeth, to prevent future identification.

Later, when the gang had to dig up three bodies they’d buried in a small house in South Boston, the observant Flemmi noticed that “Ms. HUSSEY’s corpse had some flesh clinging to the bones after it was exhumed.”

Harold Hannon and Wilfred Delaney, gangsters strangled by the Winter Hill Gang in 1964:

Flemmi says they weren’t tortured with acetylene torches, and were in fact given drugs — “a humane method intended to reduce the doomed pair’s suffering.”

Wimpy Bennett, Stevie’s first underworld boss, was murdered in 1967 because “(Mafia underboss) Larry BAIONE had a particular dislike for BENNETT and these feelings were mutual.”

Walter Bennett, Wimpy’s older brother, was murdered three months later. “After his brother’s murder Walter no longer trusted FLEMMI. … It was decided that Walter must also be eliminated.”

Billy Bennett “began vocalizing his belief that Flemmi had murdered both his brothers.” Flemmi “reluctantly decided” Billy had to go, too.

Richie Grasso, who helped kill Billy Bennett, was shot in the head the same night in December 1967 “because of the panic he had exhibited at the murder scene.”

Peter Poulos, a witness to the Bennett murders, was murdered by Flemmi in the Nevada desert in 1969 because “FLEMMI became concerned that POULOS’ will was weakening.”

Paul McGonagle, part of Southie’s Mullens Gang, was murdered by Whitey in 1974 because “BULGER still considered him a threat, not least because BULGER had murdered his brother by mistake years earlier.”

Roger Wheeler, the millionaire owner of World Jai Alai, was murdered in Tulsa in 1981 because he “was being exceptionally difficult to deal with.”

Brian Halloran, murdered on Northern Avenue in 1982, was a potential witness against Whitey. Flemmi was fine with it: “I thought he was a bully … he killed a guy’s horse. I thought that was a despicable act.”

Tomorrow: Whitey Bulger claims five murders he didn’t commit, to intimidate a shakedown target.  Wednesday: Flemmi says FBI agent H. Paul Rico asked him for a throwdown gun to kill a gangster … but failed to go through with it.   To preorder Howie’s new book, “Rifleman,” go to howiecarrshow.com.

(Note: Lehr & O'Neil's book Whitey begins with the Davis murder--I have the audiobook version. There won't be an audiobook version of "Rifleman" but I ordered a copy of the book...--rr)

Tue column ping

'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.

Wed column ping

column

‘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.

Thu column ping

Hacks never too old  for taxpayer kisses

Thursday, April 11, 2013
By: Howie Carr

Sure, it’s impressive at some level, these state hacks hanging on until well into their 90s, but the hero of the hackerama is still John Flaherty, late clerk of the South Boston District Court.

A former truck driver, Flaherty served three terms as a state rep and was  appointed clerk in 1945 at age 35. He was still at the public trough 58 years later when he stopped coming down for breakfast in 2004.

Pension? He didn’t need no stinkin’ pension.

When Flaherty finally croaked, he was succeeded by none other than another person named Flaherty — Peggy Flaherty Albertson. How South Boston is that?

Peg was no relation to Jack, but she is the daughter of ex-state rep and judge Michael Flats Flaherty, cousin of the late double-dipper Jimmy Flaherty, and sister of ex-City Councilor Baby Flats, who is running again this year because he “wants to serve,” i.e., run up his pension, reclaim his parking space at City Hall and maybe make another run at getting his wife on the BPD, thus setting her up for yet another pension for the Flahertys, the tinkers of Ward 6.

This is what it’s all about. When hacks say “public service,” they’re talking about the kiss in the mail. Nobody, and I mean  nobody, in the Dreaded Private Sector gets a pension anymore. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, in the hackerama does.

Check out the new state pension list on our website. And remember, we don’t have the MBTA pension list. State Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton) tried to attach an amendment to the tax increases earlier this week making the T pensions public, but it was ruled “beyond the scope” of the bill.

I went down the pension list, by ages, and once again the old saying about retired payroll patriots comes to mind: “Forgotten, but not gone.”

Come on down, Eugene  Brune, former Southern  Middlesex register of deeds. Former mayor of Somerville. Retired in January at age 83, now grabbing $82,006.80 a year.

Ex-Rep. Alice Wolf of Cambridge, a moonbat’s moonbat. Also retired in January, at age 79, making $55,070.28.

Never leave until you have to. Just ask Ron Pina, the ex-DA of Bristol County. He left in 1991 and collects a mere $34,446. He was succeeded by Paul Walsh, who lasted until 2007. He gets $74,746.44.

I see one elected official emeritus who, when first elected, blurted out, “Five hundred bucks a week for the rest of my life!” Little did he know! He’s now 66, and his pension is ... $89,286.48 a year.

I know you’re thinking exactly what I’m thinking. Why didn’t we become hacks too?

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