Appeals court won't hear another round of FBI arguments over framed men

A federal appeals court has refused to give another hearing to Justice Department lawyers arguing the government owes nothing to four men who were framed for a 1965 Boston mob murder by FBI agents and their witness hitman Joe "The Animal" Barboza.

Here's the convulted judicial language issued Dec. 2 denying federal tort lawyers' attempt to overturn a $101 million judge's award ordering the government to compensate the men and their families. Two of the men died in prison.

The petition for rehearing having been denied by the panel of judges who decided the case,
and the petition for rehearing en banc having been submitted to the active judges of this court and
a majority of the judges not having voted that the case be heard en banc, it is ordered that the
petition for rehearing and the petition for rehearing en banc be denied.

Look for the Justice Department not to take no for an answer. The government seems determined not to pay for the sins of corrupt agent H. Paul Rico, who died in prison awaiting murder charges in Tulsa, and his partner Dennis Condon, who died this summer, not to mention J. Edgar Hoover. (Internal FBI memos show Hoover knew exactly what was going on in Boston during the murder case.)

The feds will now likely ask the Supreme Court to hear their arguments -- a tangled morass of legal jargoning claiming the FBI couldn't be sued in the late 1960s when the initial damage was done and arguing the feds can't be prosecuted for their role in what was a state case.

Lawyers for the surviving men, Joe Salvati and Peter Limone, feel confident their big payday is safe, though nothing is certain in this strange and terrible chapter in U.S. Justice. The Appeals Court's lengthy Aug. 27 ruling upholding the $101 million verdict will be tough to weaken, plaintiffs' lawyers contend.

Meanwhile, the interest clock is ticking. If the Supreme Court won't touch this case, taxpayers will have to pay interest dating back to 2007, when Judge Nancy Gertner entered her verdict.

Innocent man jailed 30 years still waiting for compensation

Joe Salvati (center) still has not received compensation for 30 years in prison. Attorneys Victor Garo and Austin McGuigan flank Salvati at a 2007 news conference.

For the second time in his life, former North End truck driver Joe Salvati is a casualty of the FBI's war on organized crime.

Justice Department lawyers just filed more legal paperwork delaying the day he might ever see a dime of $101 million awarded by a federal judge as payment for his stolen life. (An appeals court upheld the award and now the feds want a rehearing, no doubt on their way to a Supreme Court review as well.)

The government appears bent on continuing this fight not because it's in taxpayers' interest, or because the feds really disagree with the court's prior rulings. DOJ's 20 pages of technical mumbo jumbo seeking another hearing show they have scant argument left to raise.

The feds don't want to pay this money because an old Boston mobster named Peter Limone, who also spent 33 years behind bars after he was framed for the 1965 murder of Teddy Deegan, will get a big chunk.

By dragging out this long-running saga of injustice in Boston, the feds hope state prosecutors will have Limone back in jail by the time Uncle Sam finally writes the check. Limone, 75, faces trial next year on gambling conspiracy charges. State prosecutors say they have piles of wiretaps capturing the old made man running the remnants of the New England mob several years after his release from prison in 2000.

Salvati may have been a mob wannabe as a young man kicking around Boston's Italian neighborhood in the 1950s. But he never killed Deegan and he never deserved to lapse in jail all those years while his wife and children struggled without him. (FBI agents knew he was innocent but withheld evidence to mollify their witness Joe "The Animal" Barboza, a sociopathic killer who wanted to punish Salvati for beating up his loansharks.)

Now 76, Salvati is being victimized again. But it's not J. Edgar Hoover to blame any more. It's Eric Holder's Justice Department.

Bulger tipsters won't spill for less than $5 million, ex agent says

The FBI's $2 million reward for information leading to capture of its former informant James "Whitey" Bulger isn't enough to loosen the lips of the South Boston minions who could give him up, according to retired Bulger hunter agent John Gamel.

The "one or two people" in the crime boss' old neighborhood who could offer the tips ending 80-year-old Bulger's 14 years on the run would want more than $5 million at least, Gamel told an audience tonight.

The retired FBI supervisor, who headed the organized crime section from 1995 to his retirement in 2001 and spent 22 years with the bureau, said he has been criticized within the bureau for believing Bulger won't be brought in without a bigger tipster paycheck.

Gamel, who is now a private eye and does investigations for the city of Boston's legal department, talked for more than a hour to an audience at a suburban library. His friend FBI agent Richard Egan helped field questions about agents' training (nobody over 37 can become a new agent) and placements.

Gamel doesn't do investigations for criminal defense as a PI, he said, because he "wore the white hat too long." "I figure the guy's gotta be guilty," he said.

Asked how former agent John Connolly managed to protect his murderous informants Bulger and Steve Flemmi so long, Gamel claimed he didn't know about Connolly's deception.

He said he began investigating Bulger himself in 1990 for extortion when a victim came to the bureau. Federal prosecutors with the help of State Police brought an indictment against Bulger in 1995.

Connolly tipped Bulger to get out of town before he could be arrested.

Justice Department determined not to pay for FBI's role in framing of four men

Mob hitman-turned-government witness Joe "The Animal" Barboza was gunned down more than 30 years ago but the torts division of the Justice Department seems determined to keep doing his dirty work.

DOJ lawyers want another hearing in the First Circuit after three appeals court judges in August refused to overturn a record $101.7 million federal verdict awarded to four men whom Barboza framed for a 1965 murder.

DOJ's attorneys want another bite at the apple, this time before a full panel of six judges in what's known as an en banc hearing. The government is slated to file its reasons for requesting this hearing by Nov. 13.

Two of the four men Barboza wrongfully accused died in prison. Two others, Joseph Salvati and Peter Limone, are now in their late 70s and Limone faces trial next year on charges of bookmaking. A federal judge found the FBI knew the men were innocent of the '65 murder for many decades but did not share its information with state prosecutors who won the death penalty in the case. (The electric chair was banned in Massachusetts before the sentences could be carried out.)

The Justice Department's determination to drag out the case until Salvati and Limone are in nursing homes makes one lawyer in the case look pretty shrewd. Attorney John Cavicchi got the state to pay $500,000 last year to Roberta Werner, the widow of Louis Greco, in a deal requiring her to pay the money back if she wins the federal money.

(Other lawyers did not take part in any settlement negotiations with the state, contending that would only undercut their argument that the feds were to blame, not state prosecutors.)

Werner, of Boynton Beach, Fla., abandoned her sons with Greco under the pressures of his incarceration. He died in prison at age 78. Louis Jr. later commited suicide while Edward Greco is penniless and dying of cancer in state-funded care in New Orleans.

The government's reasons for continuing this terrible chapter in FBI history should make interesting reading.

Feds tighten the noose around ex-House Speaker Dimasi

A federal grand jury just handed up a superceding indictment today adding extortion to the list of charges against former Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi.

Federal prosecutors now contend DiMasi extorted $5,000 per month out of a software firm bidding for millions in state contracts. In the federal criminal codes that's called "extortion under color of official right." The once powerful speaker forced a pay-for-play scenario, the feds claim.

DiMasi apparently held up his end of the deal. He made sure $4.5 million for Canadian firm Cognos was earmarked in the state budget. When Department of Education honchos complained that the earmark for software licensing was binding them to Cognos, DiMasi refused to drop the earmark, the indictment claims.

The deal also benefited two of DiMasi's longtime friends, who received $100,000 each in consulting fees from the company in 2006 and another $700,000 in 2007, the feds say.

The new charges also claim DiMasi had a hidden interest in his friend Richard "Dickie" Vitale's management company Genesis which sought contracts to manage state buildings. That "hidden" interest appears clear in e-mails between Vitale and another man who was part of the scheme (his identity was not revealed by the prosecutors). The e-mails are detailed in the indictment.

The new charges means DiMasi and friends will have to face a federal judge again and run the media gauntlet. The former speaker resigned in January and could face 20 years in prison if convicted.

WBZ catches Suffolk jail employees taking handicapped parking spots

A WBZ-TV investigation caught six Suffolk County Sheriff's Department employees parking in handicapped spaces outside the jail in downtown Boston. The scofflaws used fraudulent parking placards, taking parking from disabled people seeking care at the nearby Spaulding Rehabilitation Facility.

BZ reporter Kathy Curran did her best Mike Wallace chasing jail guard Jonathan DePina as he exited his silver Infiniti. She said she watched him spend his entire shift parked in a space meant for the disabled. DePina tried to hide his face with a CD case and then put his hand over the camera lens.

Curran almost got a trip to physical therapy herself when she confronted a uniformed jail employee named Renita Dudley parking in a handicapped space. Renita sped way to give BZ the slip and almost hit Curran.

Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral declined to go on camera to talk about her employees' criminal conduct. She has called the parking situation at the jail horrendous and once offered parking spots as monthly prizes to jail employees with the best attendance.

In the long ugly history of crimes committed by Suffolk County jail guards, parking scams are pretty minor. Yet, BZ's interviews with Spaulding patients suffering cerebral palsy show how selfish and heartless these jail employees will be just to avoid public transportation.

Appeals court upholds $101 million verdict for wrongly convicted men

A federal appeals panel today found the FBI helped frame four Boston men in 1965 for a mob murder. Two of the men died in prison, while Joe Salvati spent 29 years behind bars and Peter Limone was held for 33 years.

"In its zeal to accomplish a worthwhile goal (stamping out organized crime), the FBI stooped too low. Its conduct was not only outrageous, it was tortious," the court said.

In an opinion written by Judge Bruce Selya, the three-member panel upheld a lower court's award of $101.7 million to Salvati, Limone and the estates of Louis Greco and Enrico Tameleo. Salvati was awarded $29 million while Limone received $26 million.

The panel found the FBI liable for infliction of emotional distress on the men and their families.

The court, however, rejected Judge Nancy Gertner's finding that the FBI was guilty of malicious prosecution, noting the case originated in state court. Agents knew hitman-turned-government witness Joseph Barboza was framing the four men but did share their information with Suffolk prosecutors, the appeals court found. One FBI agent testified in the state case to back Barboza.

The court said the award to the wrongly accused men and their families was high but it did not reduce the figure.





Salvati was awarded $29 million and Limone $26 million.