Free Republic

University of Massachusetts President William M. Bulger asked FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. more than 20 years ago to keep his gangster brother James J. ``Whitey'' Bulger ``out of trouble,'' a Winter Hill Gang hit man told a federal jury yesterday during shocking testimony also linking the retired agent to two mob murders. John Martorano, a remorseless killer of 20 men, claimed Whitey Bulger told him the Bulgers had a friend at the FBI after William helped Connolly escape poverty and the siren song of crime in their South Boston neighborhood. ``He said he was told that Connolly owed...

Notorious gangster Stephen ''The Rifleman" Flemmi said in two recent depositions that he and his partner, James ''Whitey" Bulger, paid more than $200,000 to their FBI handler, John J. Connolly Jr., while working as informants, and gave cash to five other agents. Questioned under oath in lawsuits against the government over the FBI's handling of the gangsters, Flemmi said they paid $5,000 each to John Newton and John Morris and $2,500 each to Nicholas Gianturco, Michael Buckley, and John Cloherty. Transcripts of the depositions, taken in October and last month, were reviewed by the Globe. Flemmi, who began cooperating with...