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To: raccoonradio

Annette Funicello has also passed away.

GOP debate (minus Winslow) on Howie’s show today at 5.
One of the candidates is named Gomez; speaking of Gomez...

Gomez the Politician! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM16uYI_nuY


16 posted on 04/08/2013 11:01:59 AM PDT by raccoonradio
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To: raccoonradio

I heard the ‘man up’ debate...Gomez sounded like a weasel. I’ll pull the lever for any republican in the race but I truly hope the primary voters find Sullivan to be the right guy to put up.


17 posted on 04/08/2013 9:38:06 PM PDT by bitt (The buck rolls downhill.)
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To: raccoonradio; Andonius_99; Andy'smom; Antique Gal; Big Guy and Rusty 99; bitt; Barset; ...
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.

18 posted on 04/09/2013 7:12:31 AM PDT by raccoonradio
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