FLEMMI: No. I’m saying that everything that I believe he did, he as far as —it was consistent with his job. He was protecting us.
WYSHAK: Did you think it was consistent with his job to violate the law, yes or no?
FLEMMI: Whatever he was doing was legal.
WYSHAK: It was legal to tip you off on investigations?
FLEMMI: That’s correct.
Most of the time Flemmi had kind words for John Connolly, but he did express disappointment that Connolly had neither gotten him out of the current fix immediately following his arrest nor taken the witness stand during the hearings to defend their deal.
FLEMMI: He should be up here testifying on our behalf.
WYSHAK: So .... he’s committed the cowardly act?
FLEMMI: Obviously—that he’s not here. I feel he should be here.
WYSHAK: So you feel he’s betrayed you also?
FLEMMI: I feel that we’ve been abandoned.
WYSHAK: Because if what you’re saying is true, he would have been knocking on the U.S. attorney’s door on day one, isn’t that true, Mr. Flemmi?
FLEMMI: He should be.
WYSHAK: Should have been knocking on my door and saying: “Hey, Fred, you made a mistake; this guy has immunity?”
The prosecutor’s near-constant mockery notwithstanding, the bottom line of Flemmi’s ten days of testimony, covering the career criminal’s murky collusion with the FBI, was that an FBI promise to protect was a covenant in perpetuity. Flemmi felt that he “would be protected for crimes past, present, and future.” If nothing on FBI paper existed to codify the deal, no matter. “We had a gentleman’s agreement,” he said about the arrangement he and Bulger had with Connolly, Morris, and the other agents.
“We shook hands. To me, that was an agreement.”
Perhaps the most dramatic moment came when Flemmi was asked if he’d been tipped to flee just before his indictment in 1995. With a sly smile, Flemmi replied, “That’s the big question, I guess.” Despite the torrent of evidence that pointed to John Connolly, Flemmi tried to convince the judge that John Morris was the one who obstructed justice by leaking a grand jury indictment. Flemmi apparently hoped this feeble scenario might lure Connolly to the witness stand to back his claim to an immunity defense. But many in the courtroom rolled their eyes. The most visible disbelief came from codefendant Frank Salemme. Until then, despite the close quarters in court and in prison, Salemme had managed to keep his deepening disdain for Flemmi in check during his week on the stand. Salemme had even weathered Flemmi’s denial that he was the one who ratted to the FBI Salemme’s New York location when he was arrested back in 1972.
But the Morris story was too much to bear. Salemme viewed it not only as a farce but as a threat to the immunity defense that could benefit all the defendants, not just Flemmi. In a game within a game, Flemmi looked to be currying favor with Connolly by protecting him. It put Salemme over the edge. During a break Salemme’s suppressed ire flared in the court’s holding cell. He went after the smaller Flemmi, lifting him up and screaming in his face. “You piece of shit,” he shouted. “You’ve fucked me all my life, and now you’re screwing everyone around you. You’re scum, and you’re gonna die.” Bobby DeLuca jumped in between the former partners in crime and broke it up. Salemme abruptly walked away from Flemmi and never spoke to him again.
THE hearings seemed to lose steam once the drama of Flemmi’s testimony ended. More FBI agents were among the remaining witnesses, including experts testifying about the FBI’s guidelines for handling informants. Debbie Noseworthy—who was now Debbie Morris—appeared briefly to corroborate John Morris’s account of the day John Connolly gave her $1,000 of Bulger’s money for plane fare. But the remaining witnesses were anticlimactic compared to the sight of a mob boss of Flemmi’s stature testifying in federal court. By October the months of testimony were winding down, and everyone had pretty much had their say.
Except John Connolly.
Thinking Judge Wolf was done, he launched a media blitz to rehabilitate a reputation that for months had taken a beating. Though he had been talking sporadically to reporters during the hearings, Connolly wanted the last word. He appeared on talk radio, on television, and as a centerpiece in magazines he’d selected to grant interviews. Each interview and article was friendly and supportive, a chance for Connolly to sound off virtually unchallenged. The headline on the cover story of the October 27 issue of the Boston Tab boldly announced: “Connolly Speaks Out,” and the cover featured a large photograph of John Connolly, dressed in his trademark tailored suit and wearing sunglasses, standing outside 98 Prince Street, the former Mafia headquarters. The meaning of the photo was clear: here was the G-man who took out the Mafia. “I’m Proud of What I Did,” screamed another headline, in bold print. But no interview was more fawning than the one Connolly had on WRKO-AM during the afternoon of Saturday, October 24, 1998. The host, Andy Moes, announced at the start that Connolly was an old friend, “a fine son of South Boston,” and “a man I know to be an honorable and decent man.” Then came Moes’s breathless ode to Connolly.
MOES: Man, oh man. What has happened? Last time your name came up it was hero John Connolly. I’ve only heard your name referred to as, like, Prince of the City. Every supervisor, everybody I know who knows you in the FBI talks about what an incredibly smart, streetwise agent John Connolly was. John Connolly did the impossible. He was able to break through and literally bring down La Cosa Nostra to their knees in Boston, something the bureau was very proud of. And happy to take credit for. Those were the last stories I heard about John Connolly. All of a sudden, I’m hearing whispers, and they are whispers, that are done in back rooms, quietly: “He’s a rogue agent, you know. He was a rogue agent.” You a little tired of hearing that? You a little sick and tired of having people assassinate your character?
CONNOLLY: It’s wearing a little thin.
Like a politician, Connolly had certain “talking” points he seemed to want to get across each time he was interviewed: that he’d never done anything wrong in handling Bulger and Flemmi; that the crime bosses were merely a “gang of two” who helped the FBI take out the Boston branch of an international criminal organization; that Bulger and Flemmi did have permission from the FBI to commit certain crimes—gambling and loan-sharking—while gathering intelligence; that John Morris was “an evil guy”; and that prosecutors Wyshak, Kelly, and Herbert had no business indicting the FBI’s informants back in 1995. Connolly called the prosecutors “cowards” who violated the FBI’s promise—and most important, Connolly’s promise—not to go after Bulger and Flemmi. “I never would have given my word to anyone had I ever thought there was a chance that the government would break it,” Connolly told Moes, his voice slowing to a crawl to put extra emphasis on his words. “They broke their word,” he growled. “Shame on them, the prosecutors here. But they had no right to break my word.”