* FBI Director Mueller gets two more years to do the right thing in the Amerithrax investigation. President Obama should direct Mueller to do what needs to be done.
Posted by DXer on May 14, 2011
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FBI Director Robert Mueller
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CNN reports …
It will take an act of Congress to keep Robert Mueller at the helm of the FBI, and all signs indicate that’s precisely what lawmakers will do. No sooner had President Barack Obama announced plans to extend Mueller’s statutorily limited 10-year term to 12 years than Democrats and Republicans alike began to smartly salute the decorated Marine and declare the move a grand idea.
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LMW COMMENT …
As far as the public can know with such a secretive organization, Robert Mueller has done an excellent job as FBI Director.
But, like the rest of us, he is not perfect. The Amerithrax investigation is one area where the FBI has fallen far short of an acceptable mark, and Mueller must take responsibility.
- The original structure of the investigation, with its changing teams and firewalls to prevent the flow of information, must have had Mueller’s approval, if indeed not his actual direction.
- The August 2008 announcement that Ivins was the sole perpetrator was a farce, especially when the FBI offered no evidence that Dr. Ivins was even involved.
- The FBI’s stonewalling response to Congress and others who have questioned the FBI’s conclusions must lay right at Mueller’s doorstep.
Director Mueller now has another two years
to do what should have been done long ago.
He has several choices …
- Cooperate fully with the GAO investigation initiated by Congressman Rush Holt
- Provide the improperly withheld information to the NAS and ask them to do a proper review
- Re-open the FBI investigation with a fresh team and no restrictions (much like I did in my novel CASE CLOSED)
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
Ezra Cohen Watnick:
If Tom Cruise can learn to fly a helicopter and do that downward spiral, you can do this.
The FBI/ R. Scott Decker did not obtain any Ames samples for TWO YEARS! Amerithrax was allowed to be botched. Why?
DXer said
Robert Mueller will save America like ‘Batman,’ former FBI colleague says
By Ruth Brown
May 21, 2017 | 12:41pm
Holy congressional probe!
Former FBI chief Robert Mueller is the hero America needs to investigate Russia’s meddling into the 2016 presidential election, his former second-in-charge said Sunday.
“A line in New York would be Batman’s back to save Gotham, but I think in this case, Batman is back to save America” …
Comment:
Batman is assembling a team.
But, with all due respect, I can’t say that Robert Mueller got Amerithrax right. And I’ve spent quite a lot of time studying the matter closely whereas Robert Mueller had many other conflcting and complex matters to oversee. (Plus, my spies and use of movie references are way better).
Maybe his other former assistant, Attorney Lambert, could set things things back on course by encouraging the FBI to produce Notebook 4282, containing the contemporaneous notes from Dr. Ivins’ notebook the day and week of mailing.
It’s never too late to be right — that is, until Gotham is attacked in a mass aerosol anthrax attack.
Then history will accord former FBI Director Mueller and his assistants and deputies an entirely different legacy.
DXer said
Just to be clear, I’m with you, Marshall.
DXer said
Russiagate Cover-Up Artist Robert Mueller
DXer said
DXer said
The daughter of the lead prosecutor who pled the Fifth with the hyped leaks that deraled Amerithrax represented “anthrax weapons suspect” (defense counsel’s term) Ali Al-Timimi for free.
GAO stands for the “Government Accountability Office.”
They have expertise in conflict of interest issues and need to provide guidance in the context of Amerithrax investigation.
The Whitey Bulger case is illustrative of a case that raises the issue whether there is an appearance of a conflict of interest.
For the head of that criminal section to say he never had a case where Whitey was a subject or target of the investigation, isn’t that precisely the problem? (He wasn’t a target when he should have been).
It helps to read the landmark Wolf decision for the relevant background regarding the FBI’s failings in the matter.
http://www.wbur.org/2012/08/09/stearns-recusal-bulger
Should Bulger Trial Judge Recuse Himself?
By David Boeri August 9, 2012
***
Under the judicial code, the appearance of bias is just as important as the reality of bias. According to Freedman, Judge Stearns has made a mistake in overlooking that.
“For a judge to write an opinion and ignore the two Supreme Court cases on the statute he’s discussing,” said Freedman with a chuckle of surprise, “is in itself very telling.”
Freedman says that in those two cases Stearns overlooked, the Supreme Court referred to the reasonable person as a member of the public and a skeptic.
So the test, in this case, is whether the public or skeptics might question — “might, not would, might question” — whether Stearns is impartial.
So ask yourself: After 20 years of investigative reports, books, movies, congressional inquiries, Bulger’s years of success avoiding capture and the hearings that blew the cover off Bulger’s relationship with the FBI, might you have doubts or suspicions that a judge who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office at the time can be impartial?
When Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly recently polled its readers — almost all lawyers — 55 percent of respondents said Stearns should have recused himself. In other words, a majority had doubts.
‘Friend And Mentor’ To FBI Director
Another, perhaps more substantial issue for Stearns that may rise to a possible conflict of interest concerns his close longtime friendship with Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI. After all, as Freeman pointed out, “The FBI is implicated here.”
I presented Freedman with accounts from former and current associates of Stearns and Mueller and of the friendship between the two men. Mueller is said to dine at Stearns’ home during his travels to Boston. And when Stearns was initially picked by President Clinton to be FBI director, as reported at the time, one associate recalled the talk that Stearns would bring Mueller to Washington as his deputy.
In 2006, when Judge Stearns was the honoree at a ceremony to unveil his commissioned portrait, Mueller and his wife flew to Boston as honored guests.
Mueller was a featured speaker. He concluded his warm remarks about Stearns by saying, “I am indeed honored to be part of this ceremony and honored to count him as a friend and mentor.”
Stearns, his “friend and mentor,” reciprocated, calling Mueller’s attendance “the greatest tribute that a friend could pay.”
DXer said
Note that Bulger was connected to Murray’s arrest in connection to the gunrunning to IRA on the ship Valhalla. Bulger killed McIntyre with his bare hands as I recall. McIntyre was spilling the beans. He may have been told about McIntyre by FBI agent Connolly. There had been a 30 million pot shipment coming back from Britain. So Murray may have been bitter and thought that Connolly tipped authorities. I believe 3.1 million was ordered paid to MyIntire’s family by DOJ. Murray paid 7k for waterproof bags to bury guns while awaiting shipment. Source Book called VALHALLA. The FBI did not meaningfully pursue Murray’s claim about Bulger … Or Murray’s claim he could lay his hands on the paintings to get his brother out of jail. he made the claim about the paintings in 1992.
DXer said
Approval of FBI Director Mueller’s extended term may need a letter or meeting addressing Senator Rand Paul’s question asking:
( see letter linked at
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/us/politics/16mueller.html )
“Why did FBI supervisors and lawyers block the search warrant sought by field agents in Minnesota who believed that Zacarias Moussaoui was a terrorist who might use a commercial airplane as a weapon in the weeks’ before September 11th? Why did the so-called “Phoenix memo,” written by FBI agent Kenneth Williams in July 2001 … never reach the highest levels of the FBI?”
Instead, it would have been more fruitful for Rand Paul to direct himself to the ongoing analogous debacle called Amerithrax. It relates possibly to the next 9/11 rather than the last one.
With respect to the Minnesota report, the difference between the Field Office and Headquarters was one of substance — the Headquarters people should have realized that Moussaoui’s connection to Ibn Khattab sufficed to meet the requirement under FISA. But it is more constructive to focus on the avoidance of future mistakes rather than take an approach that distracts, is bad for morale, and merely motivates the all-out CYA approach we’ve seen in Amerithrax.
No one should be disciplined in Amerithrax — absent a violation of law. Instead, they should pull together to get the analysis correct and solve the crime.
DXer said
Joe Murray’s brother appears to be serving a 30 year sentence in connection with the warehouse of marijuana that Whitey Bulger tipped off the FBI about.
In a May 2011 filing opposing relief request by Michael F. Murray, the DOJ argues:
I”n this case, Murray’s claim, even if it were true (that is, even if James
“Whitey” Bulger had told the FBI about the warehouse prior to the search warrant
and the FBI didn’t reveal it in the warrant affidavit), does not present an
extraordinary issue that warrants coram nobis relief. First, Murray’s claim is not
one of actual innocence and indeed he has not even suggested that he is not guilty
of the crime of conviction. Moreover, as argued in the government’s opposition
[Doc. 22], even assuming Murray’s allegations to be true, Murray is not entitled to
relief because he has not shown that the information allegedly missing from the
affidavit would have made a difference in the outcome of the suppression
litigation. Irrespective of Bulger’s information about the “Joe Murray crew,” there
was abundant probable cause to stop and search the vehicles, which then gave rise
to even more than abundant probable cause to search the warehouse.”
Reading these criminal cases reminds me how much responsibility the FBI and DOJ has for so many things.
Many of these criminals — like Whitey Bulger — are murderous psychopaths. (And I don’t mean the depressives who didn’t kiss their prom date in high school).
Moreover, they all seem to submit FOIA. :0)
And so maybe the DOJ deserves to be cut some slack regardless whether one agrees with their proposed solution of this or the other mystery.
And maybe a delay in processing FOIA should be understood in the context of how many thousands of requests they get.
When Michael suggested to Bob Fitzpatrick that he could lay his hands on the paintings, was he already in jail? Wearing an electronic bracelet?
DXer said
Mobster’s kin was informer But cooperation ended when US sought to obtain data on Whitey Bulger
The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
September 10, 1993 | Matthew Brelis, Globe Staff | Copyright
?Share
Michael F. Murray, the brother of the one-time reputed head of the Charlestown underworld, secretly cooperated with the government but the arrangement collapsed partly because Murray refused to provide information about reputed South Boston mobster James J. (Whitey) Bulger, according to sources and court documents.
Murray, without his attorney’s knowledge, contacted the Drug Enforcement Administration and the US attorney’s office early last November about cooperating in hopes of getting less than five years in prison in an upcoming marijuana-smuggling trial, according to court documents.
In the next four months, Murray, the brother of Joseph P. Murray Jr., a notorious …
Comment: When did Mick get out of jail in connection with this sentence? Did he tell Bob Fitzpatrick that he could lay his hands on the paintings? If so, what was his thinking? Does he think Susan’s overdose was accidental?
DXer said
Jul 9, 2010 – … asserted that just before his friend George Reissfelder died of a cocaine …of homes in Dedham; Lewiston, Maine; and Orrington, Maine. …
articles.boston.com/…/29294447_1_parole-hearing-second-degree-murder- board-members
Beauchamp tried to use that as a bargaining chip to obtain parole, but it appeared the board members had no interest. “Basically we’re in a Mexican standoff right now,’’ Beauchamp said.
Anthony Amore, director of security for the museum, attended the hearing yesterday. Based on Beauchamp’s statements, he said, museum officials joined the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office in searches of homes in Dedham; Lewiston, Maine; and Orrington, Maine. Each time, investigators came up empty.
“We investigated it exhaustively,’’ Amore said. “Nothing has come of it. I’m not dismissing anything at this point, because it’s still an open case.’’
Comment: So in addition to the question of the reliability of the account, I don’t even have confirmation it related to Murray. It seems Art Hostage (who I believe is Bill Youngworth) may have mistakenly jumped to that conclusion.
DXer said
I don’t know how many months after Susan Murray’s phone calls started coming into Weld that Assistant US Attorney Bob Mueller the top staff attorney left the office. It would be tricky business handling such a call about a Top Echelon Informant. But it seems one would want allegations that the informant was paying money to the FBI agent handling him should be investigated by someone independent of the agent, and not the fellow who toasted him a few months earlier at his wedding. The interview of Murray in Boston occurred 18 months after the calls started in January 1988.
Boston Globe – Jun 19, 1988
Assistant US Attorney Bob Mueller the top staff attorney to US Attorney Frank McNamara is thinking about leaving his post his friends say Mueller who was …
DXer said
DEPUTY US ATTORNEY WHO PROSECUTED IN CLEMENTE TRIAL WILL LEAVE POST
[THIRD Edition]
Boston Globe
Author: Elizabeth Neuffer, Contributing Reporter
Date: Jul 29, 1988
“I would say without Bob Mueller in the US Attorney’s office, I don’t see how its going to operate,” said Harvey Silverglate, a defense lawyer who frequently found himself playing the defense to Mueller’s prosecution.
Educated at Princeton, New York University and the University of Virginia Law School, Mueller joined the US attorney’s office in Boston in 1982, after five years in the US attorney’s office in San Francisco.
According to Mueller, the [Gerald W. Clemente] case stands out most in his mind. When the three police officers who were recently indicted in the scheme go to trial this fall, Mueller will try some of the cases as a special assistant US attorney.
richard rowley said
My comment would be this: the FBI director would have no particular desire to overturn what he himself has already personally endorsed: the DoJ’s claim that Ivins was the sole perpetrator.
Reasons:
1)individuals and organizations don’t like admitting they are wrong.
2)they particularly don’t like admitting that they are wrong about things they are supposed to be ‘experts’ in.
3)when they DO admit their mistakes in this regard, it is usually via the propect of a KNOWN mechanism which will embarrass them far more via some public high-profile revelations (see in this regard the rape charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn: it is better to bite the bullet now than to go to trial and have the defense expose the woman-accuser as a serial liar).
So, to overturn the DoJ position on Ivins/Amerithrax there would have to be VAST decisive disclosures about the nature of the crime and/or activities by Ivins on the night of September 17-18th that spatiotemporally precluded him from having driven to Princeton at that time.
Unlikely. And it would be ‘bad for morale’ at both the Bureau and the DoJ to even countenance the possibility that a misjudgement was made in Ivins’ situation.
DXer said
I agree totally.
It is analogous to the Whitey Bulger matter. As Assistant Attorney General Weld noted in a memo, United States Attorney O’Sullivan and then Assistant US Attorney Bob Mueller would know that the tip about Bulger’s murders and bribery of John Connoly and Ed Walsh rang true.
And so what did Bob Mueller do? Nothing? Bad for morale, i suppose, he reasoned, to direct an independent look into the matter. And so instead John Connolly’s personal friends were asked to interview Joe. And then the lead was not pursued.
But in Amerithrax, given Mr. Mueller is so smart, he would know from a review of the documents that
1) the imagined code based on double-lining was made up — all those letters were not in fact double-lined.
2) Dr. Ivins did not submit the sample. It appears that his assistant and apparent accuser Patricia Fellows did. See the initials which are “PF” and not “BI” and then compare that documentary evidence to the nebulous evidence relied upon by the FBI. Bruce insisted for years that his assistant had prepared the April 2002 samples.
3) Pat’s workspace was in the area that was decontaminated. He shared his results with her.
4) Director Mueller knows all about what was redacted from the 9/11 report being hinted at by Senator Bob Graham. Director Mueller knows that Al-Timimi was coordinating with Anwar Awlaki and coordinating with Bin Laden’s sheik etc. He knows Ali used to work for Andrew Card. And while he fought Card on the warrantless NSA wiretapping, he let Amerithrax be botched by the compartmentalizing of the information. He even dutifully reported regularly to Andrew Card on Amerithrax!
5) According to the investigators, it was Director Mueller who insisted on the blood hound lead even though Scott Shane soundly derided their reliability in a 2002 NYT article. Indeed, they also alerted to Pat Fellows!
6) the investigators and psychiatrists relied upon the psychic exorcist granted her special powers of astral travel by an alien from another planet. While the Director may not have known about it in Fall 2008, he does now. And so his failure to reopen the Amerithrax investigation upon that revelation is now part of his historical legacy. He turned from bloodhounds to astral travelling psychics who throught nasty Taliban entities and murderous spirits attached to her clients were trying to poison her.
But it’s not like appointment of Mr. Comey, Mr. Wainstein or Mr. Mason would have made any difference. They would invoke the same “bad for morale” and related rationales. And so the FBI was bested by Dr. Ayman Zawahiri and that’s all she wrote until after the attack.
Then the history can be written and journalists like David Willman who failed to address the documents and merely repeated the FBI’s conclusory assertions can be excoriated for having been a flack for those spinning crock. He doesn’t even address the merits until the Appendix after the Epilogue! His key witness against Ivins was the lady who thought aliens from other planets implant devices in the good citizens of this planet.
It’s in GAO’s court as to whether it enforces basic principles of good government — such as avoidance of conflict of interest and compliance with FOIA. Here, the lead prosecutor was from a family of Palestinian activists (with his sister-in-law being paid secretly by a Saudi foundation) and his daughter came to represent Ali Al-Timimi pro bono!
Oh, but the FBI does have its defenders — like the pornographer obsessed with First Graders.
There has been an absence of investigative reporting in this matter. The occasional reporter would channel leaks from law enforcement but that was part of the problem, not the solution.
So enjoy the summer and give up any hope Amerithrax will be reopened.
Because, as you say, it would be bad for FBI morale and these folks are only concerned with their selfish career interests. For example, would it have pained Willman to have at least said “oops” regarding his key witness?.
Would it have pained the FBI so much to release the 9/17 email that Bruce wrote to Mara so as to show the time? Or to respond to the FOIA of all FOIAs that would have taken 5 minutes to produce?
Maybe Director Mueller could at least ask that Agent Kelly turn to the leads relating to Joe Murray dating to 1990 that the Boston Field Office did not
aggressively pursue because it would… well, you know.. be bad for morale.
I was a big believer in the Director for years — even until recently. But when I realize he was the AUSA in charge of combatting public corruption and knew of Bulger’s murders and bribery, I realize now why Amerithrax was allowed to be botched. And why he is so comfortable in the position of letting the truth slide.
DXer said
Returning briefly to a different bounty familiar to FBI Director Mueller, note that the New York Times article in 2002 by Mr. Blumenthal characerizes Joe Murray’s tip to Bob Fitzpatrick as referring to him as holding the paintings (“he held some paintings”). A portable FLIR device that uses infrared to see into walls costs $1500 but it only costs $300 to rent one for 3 days.
“Among those they have interviewed is Robert Fitzpatrick, president of the Boston investigations company I.E.I. Resources Inc., formerly a career F.B.I. agent, supervisor and profiler who originated the Abscam public corruption investigation in Miami as a sting to recover stolen art.
Mr. Fitzpatrick told the filmmakers that he thought Mr. Bulger, a fugitive since 1995 and on the F.B.I.’s most-wanted list, may well hold the key to solving the theft because only an underworld leader of his power could have compelled silence for so long and could now unlock a flow of information. He said that one of Mr. Bulger’s associates, Joseph P. Murray Jr., once confided that he held some paintings whose recovery would make Mr. Fitzpatrick famous. But then Mr. Murray was shot to death by his wife and the tip died with him. “
DXer said
The Irish Voice ran the news of his passing.
Joe Murray, Boston Gunrunner, Shot Dead
Irish Voice [New York, N.Y] 29 Sep 1992:
Joe Murray, Boston Gunrunner, Shot Dead.
JOSEPH P. Murray Jr., the Boston man convicted in 1987 of attempting to smuggle seven tons of weapons to the IRA, was found shot to death in his Maine home last Wednesday, September 16. Police say that the 46-year-old Charlestown native was shot by his wife, Susan, in a domestic dispute.
Detective Jeffrey Harmon of the Maine State Police said that police believe Susan Murray, 40, shot her husband in self-defense. Susan was not arrested and no charges have been filed.
In 1984, Murray led a daring attempt to smuggle arms to the IRA aboard the fishing trawler Valhalla.
***
After an autopsy, Murray was buried on Monday in a well-attended funeral in Charlestown, where he had been a very well-known figure in the Irish community.
The Murrays had moved to Belgrade Lakes, Maine with their three children, who range in age from 8 years to 18 months.
Police said that neighbors recalled seeing Murray arrive at the house on Wednesday morning at about 1:15 p.m., and hearing gunshots 15 minutes later. Mrs. Murray then reportedly was seen running from the house.
Police, who had been telephoned by neighbors, arrived at approximately 1:30p.m. They reported that they found Murray, clutching a knife, lying dead at the foot of a flight of stairs at the front of the house.
Detective Harmon said:
“It appears at this point that there was some sort of domestic dispute. There appears to be no probable cause that anyone committed a crime.”
DXer said
Mob Figure May Unearth Corruption of Lawmen
By MICHAEL COOPER and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: June 30, 2011
“I think there are a whole bunch of people out there he could probably name” who are worried what he might say, said Robert Fitzpatrick, who was an assistant special agent in charge of the Boston office of the F.B.I. in the 1980s, and who has testified that he tried unsuccessfully to end Mr. Bulger’s run as an informant.
The Bulger saga has been explored in trials, Congressional hearings, reams of newsprint and a shelf of books. But a review in recent days of hundreds of pages of trial transcripts and court decisions, along with interviews with several former law enforcement officials and lawyers connected with the case, shows that, despite all the scrutiny, there has never been a full official reckoning of the public corruption that allowed Mr. Bulger to thrive. His partners have testified that former F.B.I. agents were on the take, and named names, but in many cases, the agents simply denied it and nothing happened. A report promised years ago by a special prosecutor was never issued. It is unclear even now whether the government wants to reopen old wounds.
“It’s not always just the guy pulling the trigger who is guilty,” said Tom Foley, a retired state police commander who pursued Mr. Bulger with Ahab-like intensity for years, only to see him elude capture thanks to help from his F.B.I. friends. “It’s also the people who set that up and allowed it to happen, and especially the people who had a responsibility to put a stop to it.”
agents waited 15 months before approaching Theresa Stanley, the first girlfriend Mr. Bulger fled with, who returned to Boston in 1995 because she disliked life on the road. Judge Wolf began his decision with a quotation by Lord Acton, who wrote in 1861 that “every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice.”
“This case,” the judge wrote, “demonstrates that he was right.”
Comment:
The FBI corruption in connection with Whitey Bulger is ancient history.
I recommend that the authorities focus on recovery on the Isabella Garder paintings and the apparent claim by Joe Murray to Bob Fitzpatrick that he could lay his hands on the paintings.
Given the uncertainties of proof against Ivins — with all the subsidiary claims and assertions contradicted by uploaded documentary evidence — and given the former CIA top analyst says that Ayman Zawahiri plans on attacking the US in a manner greater than 911.. possibly killing millions…
the priority should be to investigate Amerithrax. For starters, the GAO should force a full production of documents subject to FOIA.
In comparison, even recovery of some stolen paintings valued at $500 million is trifling and need not be a priority for the FBI.
Yazid Sufaat was captured in December 2001. Why did it take until November 2002 for the FBI to interview him? (They let Jdey go at the time they had Moussaoui and never disclosed this fact).
Why didn’t the FBI disclose that its expert had made a dried aerosol out of the Ames in Flask 1029 in research for DARPA?
Why didn’t the FBI obtain the documents about the DARPA-funded former Zawahiri associate working alongside Bruce in May 1998 in the B3 until February 2005?
Is Ali Al-Timimi, who shared a suite with the leading DARPA-funded Ames anthrax researchers a Top Echelon Informant? What does Professor Turley say? If so, is his information worth the trouble or does the secrecy just serve CYA instincts.
Mr. Morris in the Connolly saga went to be a trainer at FBI Quantico. In the Amerithrax investigation, were the FBI scientists at Quantico concerned that they would get in trouble that their expert had made a dried aerosol out of Ames? (Making dried aerosols at Detrick had been the subject of denials for a decade)? What is the reason for allowing General Parker’s mistaken denials to stand?
DXer said
Ulrich Boser says that David Turner wanted him to put his picture on the cover of the book — and that Turner’s boss was trying to get the paintings back (so they could be used in trade). His underworld boss was sentenced to something like 47 years for robbery of a armed car repository and died a few years later in jail.
http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn
“Has anything surfaced since you’ve written the book that’s pushed the investigation forward?
People have contacted me about specific things I’ve written in the book about David Turner that I think are quite interesting. I have not solved this case, and I don’t mean to imply that I have solved this case. But I do think that there is a great deal of evidence that David Turner is one of the men who robbed the museum that night. Other investigators have pointed to this as well, so I write about that at great length in the book. Because of that, some people who have known him or have heard of him have said some things that are quite interesting. Certainly this has, as you said, shaken up and created some more leads, but I certainly wouldn’t want to say we’re any closer to finding these paintings.
Barring an explicit confession from David Turner, what other evidence would it take for you to say that you believe without a doubt that he committed the heist?
I would love to see more information. There was a Boston Globe article written shortly after the book that indicated some more evidence, for instance that David Turner had purchased some items at a surveillance shop in Florida. I’m not 100 percent sure of the exact details and I’d want to look at that. So there is some more evidence that has come forward.
I don’t think we can say anything beyond any doubt. He’s never been charged with a crime. Until the paintings come back, I don’t think we’re going to know exactly what happened. In fact, even when the paintings do come back, we probably won’t know exactly what happened.
In the book, Turner seems tantalizingly close to wanting to say something about the heist. Is it just his negotiating position that prevents him from saying what it is that’s on the tip of his tongue?
I’m not sure. I don’t necessarily want to speculate on the motivations of David Turner. What I can see from the letters is that there does seem to be something where he wants to associate himself with this crime. Where he wrote, specifically, that I should put his picture on the cover of this book. That seemed a remarkable thing for him to say, since his current defense is that he was actually entrapped for the crime. He sent me a poem–again, it seems that he wants to place himself within it.
Now, someone could point out that this is the biggest burglary in American history. If you’re a career criminal, this is actually kind of a cool thing to be associated with.”
Mr. Boser writes:
“If you believe in the David Turner angle, what you see from these wiretaps and these FBI 302s is Carmelo Merlino, who is David Turner’s underworld boss, is reaching out to another person to try to get these paintings back. Now, it is possible that Carmelo Merlino was reaching out to the wrong person, but it looks like these negotiations that are occurring. You see people coming in and out of the autobody shop. At one point, Melo talks about some individuals quite specifically, but then it seems sort of confused. My sense, I can say with some high degree of confidence, is that neither Carmelo Merlino nor David Turner had direct access to these paintings. They would have tried to use them to get out of jail. Who that other person is, of course, is the big question on my mind.”
Lew Weinstein said
what does this all have to do with the anthrax case. ************************************ Lewis M. Weinstein SKYPE: (1) 856-393-1691; see Lew’s author page at … http://www.amazon.com/Lewis-M.-Weinstein/e/B002IZ1BNK/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 CASE CLOSED … THE HERETIC … A GOOD CONVICTION … THE POPE’S CONSPIRACY (in draft)
DXer said
Off-topic:
“I don’t see how Mr. Merlino could be said to be the other policeman who entered the musuem. I thought both men were described as in their 20s.”
Ah, I see. (Too much sun). That would be Mr. Merlino’s nephew, in his 20s.
But so if this is Mr. Youngworth’s learning, what was Joe Murray’s connection to the Italians in 1992? Were they business associates who contemplated him being in possession of the paintings?
If in 2009 the two searches were in Lewiston and one north of Lewiston, was the second search in Belgrade? (It’s about 30 miles north, I think).
Bill Youngworth, come up to Belgrade on Wednesday or Thursday and I’ll film you while on the hiking trails. It would take meeting you to try to separate what you know from what you are guessing to see if making you are making some faulty assumptions.
DXer said
Review: Why Stealing a Rembrandt Seldom Pays Off
By JONATHAN LOPEZ For The Associated Press
July 4, 2011 (AP)
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=13991069
DXer said
EDITORIAL
The Judge Who Cracked the Bulger Case
Published: June 28, 2011
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For anyone trying to fathom James (Whitey) Bulger’s long, pathological career on both sides of the law, a 661-page opinion by Mark Wolf, chief judge of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts, tells the inside story.
***
The Wolf opinion is famous in the world of criminal justice. It led to high-profile hearings in Congress on “The F.B.I.’s Use of Murderers as Informants.”
The only time Judge Wolf commented publicly about this saga was a decade ago when he sentenced Mr. Flemmi to life in prison for his part in 10 murders. He said that “the F.B.I.’s relationship with Bulger and Flemmi was not an isolated, aberrant occurrence” when it came to the Top Echelon informants program. He found “a long pattern of the F.B.I.” ignoring the Constitution’s requirement that it be “candid with the courts” and prosecutors.
Judges are supposed to dispense justice but rarely root out crimes. As a result of Judge Wolf’s courage and persistence, the government has paid more than $100 million in claims to families of people murdered by informants shielded by the F.B.I. There is no good evidence that the F.B.I. has set up independent oversight of its informants program like what the judge called for. It’s high time.
DXer said
The 2004 Congresional Report EVERYTHING SECRET DEGENERATE: THE FBI’S USEOFMURDERERS AS INFORMANTS, relied on the United States Attorney:
“Former U.S. Attorney Jeremiah O’Sullivan testified that he was aware Bulger and Flemmi were murderers, but that they were not indicted in a race-fixing case because they were minor players and their role was confined to receiving ill-gotten gains from the illegal scheme. When confronted at a hearing with his own memorandum indicating that Bulger and Flemmi had a substantial role in every part of the criminal enterprise, O’Sullivan testified “[Y]ou got me[.]”
Former U.S. Attorney Jeremiah O’Sullivan testified that there were fundamental problems between federal prosecutors and FBI investigators. O’Sullivan stated, for example, “[I]f you go against [the FBI], they will try to get you. They will wage war on you. They will cause major administrative problems for me as a prosecutor.” O’Sullivan also testified that it “would have precipitated World War III if I tried to get inside the FBI to deal with informants. That was the holy of holies, inner sanctum. They wouldn’t have allowed me to do anything about that[.]” O’Sullivan had so little confidence in the FBI that he recommended that federal agencies other than the FBI participate in a state investigation of Bulger and Flemmi. Upon learning that O’Sullivan circumvented the FBI, the head of the Boston FBI office berated O’Sullivan for targeting Bureau informants for investigation.
The use of James “Whitey” Bulger as an informant specifically undermined public confidence in the integrity of state government by raising serious questions about whether the FBI used its authority to protect former Massachusetts State Senate President William Bulger from scrutiny by law enforcement or to advance his political career and whether he, in turn, used his authority improperly and with impunity to punish those who investigated his brother.”
DXer said
The above report indicates that after Joseph’s death, his brother Michael Murray claimed that he could deliver the paintings He had been arrested in November 1991 on trafficking charges. Convicted in January 1994. And so while he likely would be a fascinating interview regarding the paintings, it seems that he would have motivation to produce them if he could.
Four convicted of trafficking $9 million worth of marijuana
Publication:The Boston Globe (Boston, MA) Publish date:January 14, 1994Author:Judy Rakowsky, Globe Staff Copyright
A federal jury yesterday convicted two brothers of the late Charlestown underworld figure Joseph P. Murray of conspiring with others to move marijuana worth $9 million between Texas and Massachusetts from 1987 to 1991.
Michael and James Murray and two other defendants were convicted of conspiracy to traffic marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.
The arrests were made in McAllen, Texas, before a load of marijuana was picked up in November 1991.
Evidence in the case included a taped telephone call, a tape-recorded meeting and a videotaped meeting among the four men, who included …
DXer said
In 2004, ABC’s Brian Ross more specifically has Youngworth saying that the paintings ended up at the home of Joe Murray. Now all I would add is while he had control of the paintings — which I venture was at his summer home in Belgrade, Maine — there was a cabin that was not yet finished that could be seen from his deck. The island is uninhabited 9 months out of the year. The boys camp has a long history of wonderful summers. (The child born to Joe in 1985 would not have been old enough yet to attend). I believe you can see the cabin from the water (I have a picture taken of kayakers in front of it I believe) — and so with the right equipment, you wouldn’t even have to step on the island. (And you absolutely shouldn’t absent permission of the landowner/ director of the camp.) Given all the use of hiding places built into hulls that Murray used on his half dozen or so ships, the DEA must have those devices readily at hand.
BRIAN ROSS
(Voice Over) According to Youngworth, the stolen art ended up at the home of a Boston crime gang boss named Joe Murray, convicted of running guns to the Irish Republican Army. People involved in the case say Murray bought the hot art from the original thieves for just $300,000. So the art ended up with Joe Murray.
BILLY YOUNGWOOD
At one time Joe was in control of it.
BRIAN ROSS
(Off Camera) What happened?
BILLY YOUNGWOOD
Joe died. He was killed. And he didn’t control anything after that. Everybody, everybody was looking for it. And I don’t mean the police. And somebody was just extremely clever and quiet and was sitting on it for a number of years until things cooled off and then would try to market it. But …
BRIAN ROSS
(Off Camera) Is that somebody you?
BILLY YOUNGWOOD
No, course not. It Was me.
DXer said
See also the book by Boston Globe reporter Ralph Ranalli
DEADLY ALLIANCE: The FBI’s Secret Alliance With the Mob (2001)
It starts out:
“I watched Ed Clark testify about the usual manner in which he and another FBI supervisor, Ed Quinn, conducted an interview with convicted Boston marijuana trafficker Jospeh Murray in 1989. Murray was a longtime confederate of Whitey Bulger and Steve Flemmi, the FBI’s prized informants, and was offering to implicate them in no less than three unsolved murders. Murray was also saying that two FBI agents, John Connolly and John Newton, had been selling information on government investigations to Bulger and Flemmi.
I was stunned to hear Clark testify under oath that he and Quinn didn’t ask Murray a single question about the three killings. Nor was murray’s offer to cooperate ever followed up after the interview was over, he said. Finally, Clark admitted that Quinn’s report of the meeting was placed in the FBI’s highly sophisticated filing system in a manner that effectively hid it from other agents seeking information on the murders.
Clark’s explanation: He had just been doing what his bosses at the FBI told him to do.
My God, I thought. this was supposed to be one of the good guys.”
The book is a journalistic account of the FBI’s Top Echelon Informant Program. He thanks Bob Fitzpatrick as one of the people responsible for helping information about the truth of the Top Echelon Informant Program getting out. Tom Foley of the State Police is another. Clearly, judging from Mr. Ranalli’s list there were a lot of people in the 1990s trying to do the right thing — these are just two names of people who have been recently interviewed in connection with the Whitey Bulger capture.
Where are the same courageous truth-tellers in Amerithrax? A first draft of the history is being written now by GAO and Frontline and there are a lot of folks who are leaving themselves out of the first draft of the history that will prove an Ivins Theory to be crock. Many scientists have distinguished themselves (e.g., Fraser-Liggett) and spoken truth — no investigators have for the record. Mr. Willman was just summarizing a fiction as it was told two years ago in August 2008.
DXer said
Lynch calls for investigation into FBI’s involvement with Bulger
Congressman Wants the Justice Department to look into FBI’s involvement in Bulger’s crimes
June 26, 2011
http://norton.patch.com/articles/lynch-calls-for-investigation-into-fbis-involvement-with-bulger
Comment: It seems premature given that there may be large-scale arrests based on what Whitey Bulger is telling the FBI. That is, it is never too late to get it right. Give the FBI a final chance to set things on the proper course. Let’s see if there isn’t an indictment of numerous individuals in the near future. This could turn quickly into a huge FBI success story.
DXer said
This NPR piece provides overviews from a lot of quotable people.
How I Remember Whitey
by LIZ HALLORAN
June 24, 2011
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/24/137392721/how-i-remember-whitey
DXer said
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/06/24/whitey-bulger-working-on-manuscript/
Whitey Bulger Working On Manuscript?
June 24, 2011 11:10 AM
Pete Demetriou, a reporter for KNX 1070 NewsRadio told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 Friday that notes, documents and diaries were also removed from the apartment.
“There was a script, as one person told me, and also a ‘big manuscript’ as he called it that, when they were handling it around and moving it around, Mister Bulger appeared very nervous that they had custody of that,” Demetriou said.
“Who knows what that could provide in the way of information or intelligence about his past life or what he may have done in Boston or what he was doing when he was on the run.”
DXer said
FBI Shame Casts A Long Shadow
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/06/26/fbi_shame_casts_a_long_shadow/
Kevin Cullen writes in the Boston Globe today:
“[Special Agent in Charge at Boston Field Office] DesLauriers seems like a decent, sincere guy, so I hate to break the news to him, but the FBI has little credibility in these matters with many people, including me, because in this town, the only things that last longer than winters are memories.”
“The FBI never told the truth about anything involving Whitey Bulger, so it’s not really surprising that so many of us don’t necessarily believe the FBI now.”
“We love our history in Boston, so maybe I can fill DesLauriers in on some history that might explain the skepticism he finds so exasperating.
In 1988, the Globe’s investigative unit, the Spotlight Team, published a four-part series about the Bulger brothers, Whitey the gangster and Billy the politician, which included the bombshell revelation that Whitey Bulger had a relationship not just with the FBI, but with FBI agent John Connolly, a self-acknowledged Billy Bulger protege.
The FBI vehemently denied the Globe’s contention that Whitey was an informant. Jim Ahern, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Boston at the time, angrily demanded a meeting and a retraction. We met with him at the Globe, but when we said we couldn’t retract something we knew to be true, he was furious.
Nine years later, a very fine federal judge named Mark Wolf forced the FBI to admit what we all knew was true: Umm, yes, Whitey Bulger had been an FBI informant, since 1975. Oh, and for good measure, they kept him on as an informant for three years after the Globe exposed him. I’m sure he was very effective in those three years.”
Comment:
I can understand that the FBI in the Bulger/Connolly scandal had a legitimate motive to protect an informant. But objectively understood, rules and laws were broken (to include rampant bribery). People died as a result — and the real motive for the cover-up was CYA. Same with Amerithrax.
If GAO were simply to apply well-established conflict of interest principles, and the rules relating to Government in the Sunshine Act, the truth would sort itself out based on the documentary evidence.
Amerithrax represents the greatest failure in counterintelligence history in the United States. The United States (especially New York City and Washington, DC) faces an existential threat. All GAO needs to do to set things back on course is obtain the annotated database of Amerithrax documents maintained by the crackerjack Amerithrax paralegal. Then GAO can refer for criminal prosecution anyone who computer forensics show was guilty of spoliation of documents. In the saga, GAO can either serve as the equivalent of Judge Mark Wolf’s probe, or it can serve as an inconclusive interim report such as the FBI’s own internal investigation did in the Connolly matter. Then history will judge GAO’s efforts.
DXer said
“That’s our shipment. That’s ours!,” a Drug Enforcement Agency bug installed in his home recorded him saying.
Investigators say then Boston FBI agent John Connolly Jr. leaked McIntyre’s identity to Bulger. The FBI agent learned it from either Customs agents the fisherman spoke to the day the Valhalla was seized in Boston or from Quincy cops after McIntyre spilled the beans while drunk during an arrest.”
DXer said
Another former enforcer/ book author of STREET SOLDIER, Eddie MacKenzie, says Whitey kept extensive notes. He thinks there’s record of dirty public officials.
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2011_0626fbi_on_defensive_over_capture/srvc=home&position=also
DXer said
In the Connolly matter, it was the active withholding of documents — such as is occurring in Amerithrax — that prevented the facts from coming to light. That withholding of documents would usefully be GAO’s focus.
McINTYRE, as Administrator of the Estate of John L. McIntyre; Christopher McIntyre, as Co-administrator of the Estate of John L. McIntyre, Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
UNITED STATES of America, Defendant, Appellee,
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit. 2004.
http://openjurist.org/367/f3d/38/mcintyre-v-united-states
“But the opinion, published in September 1999, ultimately concluded that it could not be determined whether FBI Agent Kennedy had, in fact, shared this information about McIntyre with Connolly and whether Connolly, in turn, had told Bulger. Id. at 214-15. That was because, as the court said later, “important FBI documents concerning John McIntyre were … improperly withheld by agents of the Boston FBI until it was too late to question relevant witnesses concerning them.” United States v. Flemmi, 195 F.Supp.2d 243, 249-50 (D.Mass.2001).”
DXer said
FBI pride in mobster’s arrest may vanish as he starts talking, June 26, 2011
http://www.lvrj.com/news/fbi-pride-in-mobster-s-arrest-may-vanish-as-he-starts-talking-124558804.html?ref=804
Decades later, when the FBI’s corrupt informant program surfaced with Flemmi and Bulger as its central figures, the public learned why justice had been so hard to find.
With Bulger in custody in Boston, some believe this will close one of the most blatant examples of corruption in the bureau’s history. Perhaps the stain that penetrated deep into the fabric of the FBI’s credibility will at last be removed, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Back in 1995, Bulger fled Boston ahead of a racketeering indictment, and the consensus is friends in the bureau tipped him off. Maybe now we’ll find out just how he got so lucky.
Maybe we’ll also find out the names of any other FBI agents and Boston police officials who were on his payroll at a time he was busy running rackets and having adversaries executed.
And who would be surprised to learn Bulger made backdoor deals with politicians and business owners throughout the Boston area? You name it, Bulger supposedly had a piece of the action.
As one retired Massachusetts state police official told The Associated Press, “If he starts to talk, there will be some unwelcome accountability on the part of a lot of people inside law enforcement.”
DXer said
The FBI did not merely protect Bulger, who they knew was committing murders of informants identified by the FBI, but the FBI let others be prosecuted and convicted — one sentenced to 30 years. Even FBI Director Hoover reportedly knew the fellow who served 30 years was innocent. At this 2003 hearing, one Congressman describes the Bulger case as the greatest failure in the history of law enforcement and that in the 2 years of hearings, no one had brought forward a greater failure.
There is now — it’s called Amerithrax.
As its most recent spokesman we have Mr. Willman saying that under the “totality of evidence” he saw no evidence that Al Qaeda was responsible… and yet he has not even reviewed a single 302 interview statement on the subject given that they were not produced. He nowhere even addresses the Detainee Assessments produced after he wrote his book.
Let history judge the Bulger matter as examples where the Boston Globe and Boston Herald reporters demonstrated the importance of a Fourth Estate that critically assesses what they are being told by the FBI — that addresses the evidence that conflicts with their preconceptions, just as did the authors of Black Mass.
http://www.archive.org/details/org.c-span.177100-1
House Oversight Committee – 177100-1-DVD- Use of Informants by Law Enforcement (Part 1) – House Committee Government Reform and Oversight. Mr. Bulger testified about his interaction with federal law enforcement officials, the effect of the FBI’s misuse of informants, and his knowledge of efforts to apprehend his brother, James “Whitey” Bulger. He testified under a grant of immunity from the committee after asserting his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Filmed by C-SPAN. Non-commercial use only.
DXer said
Stephen Lynch powerfully makes his points in this 2003 tape.
Stephen Lynch pushes federal probe of FBI in Whitey cases
By Dave Wedge
Thursday, June 23, 2011
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2011_0623lynch_pushes_federal_probe_of_fbi_in_whitey_cases/
DXer said
Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz raises the issue of conflict of interest relating to an alleged extortion matter relating to 75 State St.
Who did Whitey call using the two cell phones hidden behind the wall panels?
Oh, Brothers
One critic says it’s time for an investigation of the other Bulger.
BY ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
MAY 2006
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/oh_brothers/
It’s Time to Go After Whitey Bulger’s Brother Billy
Friday, 24 Jun 2011
By Alan Dershowitz
http://www.newsmax.com/AlanDershowitz/whiteybulger-billy/2011/06/24/id/401333
DXer said
There is additional extensive testimony by William Bulger in this Part 2 of the CSPAN coverage.
http://www.archive.org/details/org.c-span.177100-2
DXer said
Weeks in Brutal, about his life as Whitey Bulger’s enforcer, continues:
“The truth of the matter is, Murray had no one with him. While Jimmy, Stevie, and I had a gang, Murray was alone. All along, he had been paying us to be his protection.
Actually, even if he had given us the $500,000 up front to take care of his wife and brother-in-law, we had already decided we weren’t going to do anything. And there was nothing Murray could have done about that. But if he’d taken our deal, he would have still been alive because he would have thought we were doing something. Then he would have not left for Maine by himself to take care of his wife. He saved the money, but he paid the price.”
On the next page, Weeks tells that Operation Bean got started because of a mistaken intelligence report that placed Murray in the car with Whitey. After hearing of the report — Connolly kept him up-to-date on such things — Whitey angrily confronted the City cop and threatened his life. The cop told City Hall and was just told to stay out of Whitey’s territory and given a 2 week vacation.
What did the AUSA, Robert Mueller, in charge of combatting public corruption, narcotics etc in Boston, think of the rampant corruption that existed throughout the 1980s and his tenures in the United States Attorney Office?
What did he do to set things on the right course in Boston?
What did he do to set things on the right course in Amerithrax?
DXer said
Joe Murray “succinctly described the situation later to FBI agents: “MURRAY said that WHITEY BULGER and STEVIE FLEMMI have a machine and the Boston Police and the FBI have a machine and he cannot survive against these machines.”
Howie Carr, in THE BROTHERS BULGER: HOW THEY TERRORIZED AND CORRUPTED BOSTON FOR A QUARTER CENTURY (p. 190) describes how 15 tons of marijuana that Joe Murray had stored in a Charlestown warehouse had been seized. Whitey had not been receiving any protection money and so stopped in at 345 D Street in South Boston to check it out. Moments after Whitey left it, the DEA raided it.
Whitey then went to Murray and offered protection from further raids. Murray paid $80,000 and suddenly he and Whitey were “partners.”
DXer said
Did Bob Mueller, as claimed by a top DOJ official at the time, know about Whitey’s murders and about John Connolly? After getting information from Joseph P. Murray, through an intermediary, DOJ official Weld forwarded the information to the U.S. Attorney’s Office inBoston, with the handwritten notation that “both [Jeremiah] O’Sullivan and AUSA [assistant U.S. attorneny, and future head of the FBI] Bob Mueller are well aware of the history, and the information sounds good.”
Howard Carr, THE BROTHERS BULGER, at p. 207.
By way of background, in addition to giving information about Valhalla, which was running guns to the IRA , a fellow named McIntyre, later brutally slain by Whitey, told authorities about another drug ship, which was seized with thirty-six tons of marijuana. “Whitey was furious; in 2005 Stevie [Flemmi] testified that he and Whitey had been expecting to be paid “about a million” for their so-called protection of the shipment; the DEA let the FBI know who their informant was, and the clock began ticking down on McIntyre. On November 30, 1983, McIntyre left his parents’ home in Quincy to meet Pat Nee, Whitey’s liaison to the Murray crew, at the same house where Bucky Barret had already been murdered, and Deb Hussey soon would be. McIntyre thought he was going to a party; he walked into the house carrying a case of beer. But Whitey was waiting for him.”
[after trying to strangle him, Whitey asked:
“Do you want me to shoot you in the head?”
“Yes, please,” McIntryre answered. (p. 206)
This time they removed his teeth with pliers but also his tongue, as a warning to informants.
“Sixteen months later, Nee and Joe Murray were indicted for gun running. So was the missing John McIntyre. After his conviction in 1987, Murray found himself sitting in the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.”
“He knew who’d killed Brian Halloran, and Bucky Barrett, and he knew the names of the cops who were selling information to Whitey. Joe Murray reached out for Billl Weld, the former U.S. attorney in Boston who was now in Washington as an assistant attorney general in Ed Meese’s Justice Department.”
Murray couldn’t make the calls himself from prison, so he had someone else phone Weld’s office. The first call was on January 20, 1988. Murray’s friend named John Connolly and a Boston police officer as two cops who sold information to Whitey. Weld’s secretary, Judy Woolley, took the dictation.” (p. 207)
“In the second call, on, on February 3, 1988, at 3:04 p.m., Murray’s friend informed the Justice Department who had murdered Bucky Barret, and why. A week later, he called again, and this time he told the secretary who murdered Brian Halloway. And Murray’s friend included this tantalizing information: “There is a person named Johyn, who claims he talked to Whitey [and another gang member] as they sat in the car waiting for Harrloran on Northern Avenue. …
Weld forwarded the information to the U.S. Attorney’s Office inBoston, with the handwritten notation that “both [Jeremiah] O’Sullivan and AUSA [assistant U.S. attorney, and future head of the FBI] Bob Mueller are well aware of the history, and the information sounds good.”
DXer said
Mr Carr, an experienced investigative and intrepid reporter, continues:
“”It was so good, in fact, that the Boston office of the FIB did nothing about it for fifteen months. Finally, in June 1989, Murray was shipped up from Danbury to Boston, and interviewed. He was questioned by two of [Connolly’s ] best friends in the office.”
“In view of the unsubstantial and unspecific allegations,” the agents wrote after speaking to him, “and the official relationship between SSA [Supervisory Special Agent] CONNOLLY and the sources, Boston recommends that this inquiry be closed, and no administrative action taken.”
(p. 208)
DXer said
“In other words, business as usual. Murray was shipped back to prison and his charges ignored for more than a decade. But everything he had said was true — Whitey and the FBI and the Boston police did have their machines, and Murray couldn’t survive against them, nor could anyone else. Because it was all one big machine now, and Whitey Bulger called the shots. Like Jimmy Cagney in White Heat, he was on top o’ the world, Ma, top o’ the world.” (p. 208)
As Alan Dershowitz said in a blurb for this book, “The soridid story is not yet over.”
The author description of this 2006 book reports that “Howie Carr is an award-winning columnist for the Boston Herald and the host of Boston #1 radio talk show, which is syndicated in twelve states.” The book reads to me like a powerful and authoritatively written expose by a fearless investigative reporter. You get a sense of the extensive research for the book over 25 years that the author did in the preface.. This has major motion picture written all over it.
DXer said
In Amerithrax, some speculate the informant they were shielding was Anwar Awlaki. see, e.g. THE NEXT WAVE.
Others think that the Amerithrax AUSA was ordered to stay away from Al-Timimi because a deal had been struck. see, e.g., Ice Princess.
Meanwhile, the FBI traded bloodhounds for an astral traveling psychic.
DXer said
June 25, 2011
‘Whitey’ arrest recalls Gloucester IRA gun run
By Andrea Holbrook
Staff Writer
http://www.gloucestertimes.com/local/x603693255/Whitey-arrest-recalls-Gloucester-IRA-gun-run
Of the 19 counts of murder Bulger now faces, a judge found the FBI liable for three. One of those killings was that of McIntyre.
Connolly would be convicted for tipping Bulger off about the indictment.
A judge awarded McIntyre’s family $3.1 million, found that Connolly was the “proximate cause” of McIntyre’s death and said the federal government should be held responsible.
Connolly is serving 40 years in prison.
DXer said
In the 2006 “A Criminal and an Irishman,” Patrick Nee describes Murray’s use of safe houses in other people’s names in the connection with describing the fallout relating tothe Valhalla. After Whitey killed John McIntyre, Whitey told Nee that Whitey would have to deal with Connolly to keep the organization out of trouble.
Nee then went on the lam. He went first “to Mexico and stayed in a safe house that belonged to Joe Murray. Joe owned lots of properties and used other people’s names to hide assets. I stayed in Mexico for a month and then I came back to the States, to New Hampshire.”
DXer said
On May 16, 2011, just outside of Ithaca, NY, I took this picture of McLean Bog, identified by the National Park Service as a national landmark.
http://photos.syracuse.com/yourphotos/2011/06/mclean_bog.html
To see the humor you had to know that it was the DOJ’s mistaken reliance on Ms. McLean that led to to the FBI’s confidence in the FBI’s Ivins Theory dating to late July 2008
… which explained why in August 2008 they all so confidently asserted their confidence while offering nothing in the way of proof that withstood scrutiny when judged against the documents and expert government opinion on such things as genetics.
I could have told Mr. Willman about Ms. McLean’s life experience evidenced by ASCENSION JOURNEY if he had emailed …but he never did. He was too busy pinning down that “Bruce the Goose” nickname from childhood.
DXer said
Whitey used a false wall in his apartment for hiding. Question for Patrick Nee. At Murray’s safe houses you stayed at in Mexico and New Hampshire, were there secret hiding places that you knew about? (what you may call “hides”).
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/06/26/bulger_offers_new_details_to_authorities/
The 81-year-old gangster, arrested at his Santa Monica, Calif., apartment building on Wednesday after 16 years on the lam, allowed law enforcement officials to search his two-bedroom apartment without a search warrant, Inside, they found a false wall that Bulger used to conceal a cache of weapons, and perhaps contradicting reports that Bulger was in ill health, exercise equipment that included a punching bag.
DXer said
Former FBI Agent discusses capture of Whitey Bulger
DXer said
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/james-whitey-bulgers-capture-could-cause-trouble-inside-the-fbi/2011/06/24/AGis2cjH_story.html
James ‘Whitey’ Bulger’s capture could cause trouble inside the FBI
The retired agent, John Connolly Jr., was sent to prison for protecting Bulger. The FBI depicted Connolly as a rogue agent, but Bulger associates described more widespread corruption in testimony at Connolly’s trial and in lawsuits filed by the families of people allegedly killed by Bulger and his gang.
After a series of hearings in the late 1990s, U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf found that more than a dozen FBI agents had broken the law or violated FBI regulations.
Edward J. MacKenzie Jr., a former drug dealer and enforcer for Bulger, predicted that Bulger will disclose new details about FBI corruption and how agents protected him.
“Whitey was no fool. He knew he would get caught. I think he’ll have more fun pulling all those skeletons out of the closet,” MacKenzie said. “I think he’ll start talking and he’ll start taking people down.”
A spokesman for the Boston FBI did not return calls seeking comment. In the past, the agency has said that a new generation of agents has replaced most or all of the agents who worked in the Boston office while Bulger was an informant.
DXer said
Did the FBI let Whitey Bulger go?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/did-fbi-let-alleged-mob-boss-go/2011/06/24/AGVYBFjH_video.html
Did Robert Mueller let the Amerithrax mailer go?
DXer said
Mobster ‘Whitey’ Bulger arrested after 16 years on the lam
By CHRISTOPHER WEBER and GREG RISLING
AP
Last Updated: 4:53 AM, June 23, 2011
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/top_mob_big_nabbed_je70hIiuEWxgSuzWMQI0hL#ixzz1Q5muRgxH
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/top_mob_big_nabbed_je70hIiuEWxgSuzWMQI0hL
100 FBI retirees defend disgraced Boston agent
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fbi-connolly-20110509,0,7944927.story
Comment:
Although the FBI has emphasized that there is no evidence Whitey Bulger was involved in the Isabel Gardne art heist, as a powerful figure in the underworld there, he may have an informed opinion. Who does Whitey think was responsible for that heist?
There’s a $5 million reward offered by the museum. The FBI executed search warrants in Maine not so long ago.
DXer said
Now if they find the paintings hidden in the construction of the cabin, on this issue of probable, the FBI might also consider whether there is enough reason to stop by and check for Dutch Schultz’ hidden loot, which may be hidden in a secret sub-basement of an unsuspecting home owner at home built in 1935.
Dutch Schultz in Fairfield County, Connecticut in 1935 : his horses, his hiding places, and his missing millions
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1475537
Stable logs show that Dutch Schultz and his bodyguard Lulu rode by every day while hiding in a Bridgeport, CT hotel during his trial in Syracuse for income tax evasion.
Dutch wanted to get out of the crime business and settle down in Fairfield, CT.
It would involve trying to persuade the orthopedic surgeon who owns the home that his 1935 was built by a proxy / alias of Dutch Schultz. (There was similar sub-basement at a Rhode Island mansion used by the gang and Dutch held his property in the names of proxies, such as a home on a famous estate he owned in the name of his driver). The loot stashed in the trunk is worth tens of millions and IRS has a claim to it. I’ve seen the files of Hoover and prosecutor Tom Dewey and greatly like the lead. The FBI would use the same special equipment to look into walls. The orthopoedic surgeon who lives there would allow a consent search of the basement walls and so no need even to consider whether there is a probable cause.
DXer said
Let’s consider where the Rembrandt stolen in a different heist — the Worcester museum — was hid.
http://articles.boston.com/2011-06-19/lifestyle/29677385_1_rembrandt-gogh-worcester-art-museum/7
“Monday put the paintings in the trunk of his car, drove to his home in Bellingham, and hid the art in a drop ceiling. …
The 340-year-old Rembrandt spent four weeks in the hands of Monday and various small-time felons and hoods and was even hidden briefly on a pig farm in Rhode Island. All four paintings were recovered by the FBI and Worcester police, who marked Monday as a suspect after one of his handpicked men informed on him. Monday fled to Canada for two years but was tracked down by federal agents, caught, and sentenced, in 1975, to nine to 20 years in prison. He served five.”
DXer said
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18336817?nclick_check=1
William Bulger has no reaction to Whitey’s capture
The Associated Press
Posted: 06/23/2011 03:35:09 AM PDT
BOSTON—James “Whitey” Bulger was one of Boston’s most notorious mobsters.
His younger brother, William Bulger, was one the most powerful politicians in Massachusetts.
William had little reaction to the news that his brother was captured in California late Wednesday after 16 years on the run. He said “thank you” and “no comment” to a Boston Globe reporter who told him of the capture.
William Bulger was president of the state Senate for 17 years and served seven years as president of the University of Massachusetts.
He testified in 2003 before a congressional committee investigating the FBI’s ties to mobster informants such as his brother. After receiving immunity, he acknowledged receiving a call from Whitey shortly after he fled, but said he had not heard from him since and did not know where he was.
DXer said
FBI didn’t follow tip on agents selling info
[All Editions]
Boston Herald – Boston, Mass.
Author: JONATHAN WELLS
Date: May 21, 2002
A drug trafficker [Joseph P. Murray] told the FBI that John J. Connolly Jr. and another FBI agent were selling wiretap information to the Irish mob in Boston, but the bureau did not pursue the allegation, according to FBI records detailed in federal court.
When [Joseph P. Murray Jr.], who was serving a 10-year sentence in federal prison, was finally interviewed by two other Boston FBI agents in June 1989, he was not even asked about Bulger and Flemmi’s alleged payoffs to Connolly and Newton.
Murray also told the FBI that Bulger and Flemmi were responsible for the 1983 murder of bank robber Arthur “Bucky” Barrett. He said Barrett was “snatched,” tied up, forced to make phone calls to raise money, and then killed.
DXer said
Southern California — this just in
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Can Whitey Bulger help solve biggest art heist in U.S. history?
June 24, 2011 | 7:06 am
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/06/can-whitey-bulger-help-solve-biggest-art-heist-in-us-history.html
DXer said
….
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=SX1EAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eLIMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2474,4032238&dq=lockerbie+syracuse+camp+belgrade&hl=en
DXer said
Mr. Mashberg understandably felt burned by Mr. Youngsworth.
Murky Lead Tantalizes A Museum In Boston
By JUDITH H. DOBRZYNSKI
Published: August 30, 1997
DXer said
Robinson was nearby Murray at the lake and so Murray had that safety net also.
Corruption probe shakes up Boston police detective unit The case of the disappearing money
[City Edition]
Boston Globe (pre-1997 Fulltext) – Boston, Mass.
Date: Feb 10, 1996
Start Page: 1
Section: METRO/REGION
Text Word Count: 2981
Abstract (Document Summary)
The case of the disappearing money is just one question the Globe raised about the methods used by a group of veteran detectives — Acerra, Robinson and John Brazil, under the supervision of [Detective Leonard V.] Marquardt — in Boston’s drug-plagued Area E, which includes West Roxbury, Roslindale, Hyde Park and Jamaica Plain. No action was taken yesterday against Brazil.
– Two of the detectives, Robinson and Brazil, relied excessively on one informant in obtaining search warrants to enter homes in search of illicit drugs. They used the same confidential informant in at least 47 searches they conducted in 1992 — the year of the missing money search. Acerra, Robinson’s partner, routinely took part in the searches.
– The group of detectives was singularly unsuccessful in recovering money in its drug raids when compared with other detectives conducting similar searches in the same time period. Collectively, Acerra, Robinson and Brazil reported to the courts that they found cash with drugs in about 20 percent of their searches in 1992 — or about one-third as often as fellow officers chasing dealers during the same period in Roxbury and Dorchester, the city’s hottest areas of drug trade.
DXer said
What month did Joseph P. Murray get out of prison in 1990?
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EoAtem2GAQwJ:ssristories.com/show.php%3Fitem%3D1992+%22Joseph+P.+Murray%22+%22released+from+prison%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com
Ford allegedly claimed he had learned of the plot from Joseph P. Murray, the Charlestown underworld leader who was killed by his wife in 1992, sources said. Ford was Murray’s probation officer when Murray was released from prison in 1990 after serving three years of a 10-year sentence for running guns to the Irish Republican Army and marijuana smuggling.
Bulger had allegedly extorted $60,000 to $90,000 from Murray for storing drugs in South Boston without his permission, according to testimony in an unrelated federal case involving Bulger.