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.

Judge Gertner will hear 'racist' cop's civil rights lawsuit

Federal Judge Nancy Gertner will hear a Boston cop's lawsuit over his firing for sending a poison pen e-mail to the Boston Globe and his friends containing racist remarks about the Henry Louis Gates arrest.

Gertner, a Clinton appointee and former defense attorney, was randomly assigned the case this afternoon.

In the lawsuit filed today, officer Justin Barrett says 10 uniformed officers came to his home last week to take away his badge and gun and media coverage of his suspension with pay went international.

Mayor Menino called him a cancer that must be "G-O-N-E," while the police commissioner Ed Davis called the message racist.

Barrett wants a injunction against his suspension. His lawsuit claims Menino and Davis "have taken the role of prosecutor by leveling the charges, and of finders of fact, and determining the punishment ... all in their own province."

The suit does acknowledge that Barrett's remarks were perceived as racist and also sexist in his attacks on Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham.

First Amendment lawyers have called Barrett's case a close one. You can't fire someone for repugnant social or political views. But a quasi-military organization can certainly fire someone for conduct unbecoming.

The copy's wildly self-righteous e-mail exposed him as a granite-headed guy who can't seem to fathom why Bostonians might be offended by his comparing Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates to a monkey. Is being a racist jerk with the help of your private e-mail account grounds for firing? Perhaps a federal jury will ultimately decide.

Boston cop sues over firing for racist e-mail

A Boston cop who said he would have maced Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates for acting like a "bannana-eating jungle monkey" sued the city of Boston in federal court today over his termination.

Barrett who sent his thoughts in an inappropriate e-mail to colleagues in the National Guard and to a Globe columnist, filed suit this morning in the First Circuit claiming Mayor Menino and Police Commissioner Ed Davis violated his civil rights.

In comments last week, the mayor compared Barrett's actions to a cancerous tumor needing surgery.

Barrett, 36, is on suspension pending termination proceedings. He was stripped of his gun and badge last week. His attorney Peter Marano told reporters Barrett didn't mean to offend and doesn't deserve to be fired. Barrett sent the message from his personal account. Appearing on Larry King Live last week, he vehemently denied he is a bigot.

The case is Barrett v. City of Boston, No. 09-11298. No judge has been assigned the case yet.

Neurontin plaintiff drops case against Pfizer after donor offers help

An asbestos lawyer with deep pockets and a big heart stepped forward to keep a 10-year-old girl from having to testify and relive her mother's suicide in a drug liability case against Pfizer.

A second day of testimony in the first of many lawsuits over Neurontin was scheduled to begin this morning when the plaintiffs told Judge Patti Saris they wanted to drop the case, Bloomberg News reports.

However, Pfizer won't pay a dime to the family of Susan Bulger, a troubled 39-year-old Peabody woman whose life of heroin addiction, an abusive marriage and Neurontin use was about to play out for a jury.

Instead of raking her life over the coals, the lawyers and the jury all went home thanks to an anonymous donor who came forward to start a trust fund of $100,000 for Bulger's daughter Regina.

The donor is a Texas lawyer who is a friend of the plaintiff's lead attorney Mark Lanier. "He said don't put this little girl through this," said Lanier.

The donor, who once donned a Darth Vader costume at a seminar to show the evils of asbestos makers, was at the opening arguments yesterday where Lanier introduced Regina and her grandmother to the jury. The little girl left the courtroom before her mother's life of debilitating pain from rheumatoid arthritis and drug addiction was told. Pfizer also was expected to offer evidence that Bulger became a prostitute to pay for her drug habit and claimed in opening statements that she also was using crack.

Not only did the anonymous donor help the child with his gift, he also helps his pal Lanier. The Bulger case was, in the judge's own words, "very tough," and could have paved a hard road for the other 1,200 suits pending over Neurontin. Pfizer was set to show Bulger died in 2004 for reasons that had nothing to do with her Neurontin prescriptions, which were the product of Pfizer predecessor Warner-Lambert's illegal billion-dollar off-label marketing scheme.

Pfizer general counsel Amy Schulman said in a statement, "Pfizer has not paid anything in exchange for plaintiff's dismissal and continues to believe that there is no scientifically reliable evidence that Neurontin causes suicidal behavior."

The unusual resolution of the case left David Franklin, the ex-Warner Lambert salesman who blew the whistle in 1996 on the off-label marketing mess and was awarded millions in a Justice Department settlement, wandering the halls of the federal court. He was supposed to face cross examination today.

"I'm glad they did the right thing for this girl," said Franklin, who has a young daughter of his own.

In another bizarre piece of this trial, Franklin began his testimony describing his family's horror at being stalked by a Pfizer investigator outside their home less than 24 hours before he testified. Here's the transcript.