Posted on 05/16/2002 2:05:59 AM PDT by ninonitti
James J. ``Whitey'' Bulger's loyal sidekick Kevin J. Weeks testified yesterday that Bulger routinely handed out Christmas bribes, including $5,000 to FBI special agent John J. Connolly one year and other amounts to as many as 20 Boston cops.
``He used to say Christmas was for cops and kids,'' said Weeks, who claims Bulger instructed him to give Connolly the cash because Bulger was heading to a party at the home of then-Boston Bruin Chris Nilan.
The special ``EX fund'' swelled to as much as $105,000 at one time to cover payoffs to lawmen and donations to Bulger's favorite causes, including funding a trip to Disney for a Southie boy who was raped, Weeks told a federal jury.
Weeks claimed he saw as many as 30 envelopes one year for Christmas payoffs.
Connolly, 61, who Bulger nicknamed ``Zip,'' remained stoic during Weeks' testimony on the seventh day of the trial. He intently took notes as Whitey's ``surrogate son'' described several meetings he had with Connolly at area bars and Harvard Yard long after the agent retired in 1990 and went to work for Boston Edison.
Connolly declined comment yesterday but has maintained he fostered a close relationship with Bulger in order to develop him as an informant against the Italian Mafia.
Weeks, who was arrested in 1999 and cut a deal for a sentence recommendation of five to 15 years, also named other FBI agents to whom Bulger gave gifts.
Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Leonard Boyle, Weeks named retired FBI organized crime squad supervisor James Ring, known as ``Pipe,'' retired agent Nicholas D. Gianturco, ``Nicky,'' and disgraced FBI supervisor John Morris, ``Vino,'' who has admitted to taking $7,000 and two cases of expensive wine from Bulger and his crime partner, Stephen ``The Rifleman'' Flemmi.
Agent John Newton, whom Bulger called ``Agent Orange'' and who is still working in the FBI's Boston office, was sent an envelope containing $1,000 in cash marked with a drawing of an orange, according to Weeks.
Weeks also claimed Connolly came to him on Dec. 23, 1994, to tell Bulger to skip town because FBI agent Dennis O'Callaghan had revealed to Connolly that indictments were imminent against Bulger and Flemmi.
O'Callaghan, who is expected to testify on behalf of the government at Connolly's trial, retired in 1996 after 24 years with the bureau. He could not be reached for comment.
A spokesman for the Boston FBI declined comment, citing Connolly's ongoing trial.
During a conversation with Weeks inside the dank liquor locker at the Bulger group's South Boston Liquor Mart, Connolly revealed he learned from O'Callaghan that investigators planned to round up Bulger, Flemmi and Francis P. ``Cadillac Frank'' Salemme over the holidays, according to Weeks.
Weeks quickly notified Bulger, who fled and is still missing, while Flemmi stalled and was arrested a week later. Salemme was caught in Florida later that year.
Weeks testified that he has provided a list of names of corrupt lawmen to federal investigators, but did not disclose their identities in court.
``Anything of this nature will be thoroughly investigated,'' said Boston police spokeswoman Mariellen Burns.
Under cross examination by Connolly's lawyer, Tracy Miner, Weeks maintained he was telling the truth, but admitted he once joked to the government he'd confess to ``killing Kennedy'' in exchange for immunity.
Other claims Weeks made yesterday:
In 1997, Weeks worked with Connolly to prepare a phony letter sent to U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf on Boston police stationery designed to bolster Flemmi's motion for pre-trial hearings. Flemmi wanted the hearings to make his case that, in his role as an FBI informant, he was authorized to commit the crimes he was charged with, most of which involved racketeering at the time.
Under cross examination, Weeks said Connolly revealed to Bulger that one of the two men aboard the Valhalla fishing trawler had told the government about Bulger's shipment of guns to the IRA in 1984. Bulger then confronted John McIntyre, who admitted to being an informant. After abandoning a plan to send McIntyre into hiding in South America, Bulger killed him.
Bulger once excoriated Weeks for expressing annoyance when Connolly tried to chat him up one afternoon at the Liquor Mart. ``Don't ever talk about that guy. He's a friend of ours,'' Bulger said angrily.
Bulger claimed he plied FBI supervisor Morris with beers at his house after the gangster murdered former associate Brian Halloran, a government informant, in 1982 and got Morris to reveal that the bureau had come up with a license plate number from the killer's car. ``Thank God for Beck's beer,'' Bulger said.
Pressed by the defense to reveal the name of the masked man riding in the backseat of the ``hit car'' Bulger drove to kill Halloran, Weeks said he has ``a pretty good idea'' it was one of two Bulger associates - Patrick Nee or James ``Weasel'' Manville, who is deceased.
The Bulger group once extorted South Boston drug dealer Joseph Murray for $500,000, which Weeks called ``a severance package.'' Murray was later murdered, allegedly by his wife. Under cross examination, Weeks confidently answered questions with flip remarks and leg-breaker bluster.
When defense attorney Miner asked Weeks whether the Bulger group sized up their victims for strengths and weaknesses first before moving in, he said, ``As far as we were concerned, everybody was weaker than us.''
``There wasn't a person in America you couldn't intimidate?'' Miner replied incredulously.
``We weren't all over America. We were in Boston,'' Weeks said matter-of-factly.
He mocked Miner when she asked him if Bulger told him to get a body bag during an extortion session in a bar with a real estate salesman named Raymond Slinger.
Weeks said Bulger told him to get Slinger a ``bottle of beer,'' not a body bag.
``I don't think every bar in Southie has body bags,'' Weeks said.
In another case now facing Connolly, a civil suit was filed yesterday in federal court by men associated with the Mafia who were wrongly convicted in 1968 for the murder of Edward ``Teddy'' Deegan.
Peter J. Limone and the estates of Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo are suing Connolly, retired agents H. Paul Rico and Dennis Condon, FBI supervisor Morris, Special Agent-in-Charge James L. Handley, as well as former federal prosecutor Edward F. Harrington, who is a senior federal judge, and two local policemen.
The suit, which will be heard by U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner, claims Connolly tried to discourage state parole board members in 1982 from commuting the men's life sentences.
The suit accuses the government of conspiring to keep the men in prison after Rico and Condon framed them.
I'd like to know if the kid who was raped was an altarboy.
Almost any FBI agent can be made to "lay down" & "roll over" like a good lap dog if it involves organized crime,high level politicians, and politically powerful law firms.
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