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Title: Black Mass : The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr, Rubinstein John ISBN: 0-694-52440-9 Publisher: HarperAudio Pub. Date: 22 May, 2001 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 4 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.18 (174 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Scary stuff!
Comment: I know someone who communicated with the Justice Management Division after attempts to get help from the Boston and Lowell/Lawrence Mass. FBI offices failed and the State Police in Massachusetts blew them off. After accepting a hundred pages or more of correspondence the Justice Mgt division told them to get a personal lawyer and that they don't speak to ordinary citizens. Appeals to Attorney General Scott Harshbarger's office only resulted in an angry letter from that office saying the AG's office is not their private firm.
What did this person complain to these authorities about? Death threats and threats of violence to friends,family and people that person was dating when this case went public in 1995 and thereafter. Car tampering, being followed, and individuals alleging ties to the highest ranks of the local FBI office and to the Justice Dept. Some suggested the person was the target of a cruel joke being played by the DEA and other Justice Dept personnel. When this individual requested copies of any files they had with the FBI or Justice Dept, they were blown off.
The person mentioned had no criminal history and was a longtime volunteer for many organizations in Massachusetts and often worked 3 jobs.This person became convinced they are somehow linked to parties in this bizarre case but were never told they are.
Rating: 4
Summary: Mobius Strip
Comment: Not long after Whitey Bulger signed on (1975), i know of a person who was raised in state child care and whose circumstances changed significantly in Massachusetts. One day while at work after high school, the person was told " see you in room 320" by a coworker whom this person never saw again. About a year later, some of the person's mail stopped coming at their apartment. A short time later, some military police came to arrest the individual claiming they were AWOL from the military. This person was not in the military. As the person found out, across town was another person with the exact same name. When calling organizations from which the person ("John Doe#1") had not gotten mail, those organizations had the second man's("John Doe #2") address. So John Doe #2 was using this person's address for military service and knew enough about the person to contact organizations that person did business with and have their mail forwarded to the second address. 5 yrs later, when William Weld is said to have headed the Justice Dept criminal investigation division (Mueller-FBI and Judge Mark Wolf as subordinates) and Mike Dukakis was governor.,John Doe#1 was working at a local company and received an incoming customer call for another coworker. In taking a message, it was John Doe #2 who said they lived a few towns over. Another 10 yrs passed and John Doe #1 attended a major Massachusetts church at the insistence of a longtime churchgoer there. As John #1 attended the church, this 'friend' checked up on them frequently to see which services they attended, as if tallying. About a year passed and one day they saw their name in the church newsletter as being in the hospital. When John #1 called the church, John #2 had joined at approximately the same time. John #1 called the hospital and John #2 was in room 320, the same room number given by a mysterious coworker 20 years earlier! What does this have to do with the Bulger case? As part of the Bulger-Flemmi arrangement, was this person setup as a patsy and was their reputation destroyed over a span of 20 years by this John Doe #2? John Doe #2 operated in the same county region as major players in this case. Hypothetically, if one of the major players in this case had a child, how would such a child be treated and would the child prepared as leverage should the fragile relationships in this case falter? Or could Bulger, an air force veteran, have been authorized by Lt Gen Lew Allen (Air Force), Director of NSA or Flemmi authorized by Marshall Carter? Or Were either affiliated with the Treasury Departments or Secret Service?
Rating: 4
Summary: Depressing but fascinating
Comment: Written by two veteran Boston reporters, "Black Mass" is a story of crime and corruption that turns into a gripping tale of good intentions gone awry. Taking place on the mean streets of South Boston, a mere twenty miles or so from where I've lived my whole life, this book tells of a violent intersection of cultures: the tribal culture of Irish America, the often-closed culture of the Federal Bureau of investigation, and the violent culture of organized crime. And unfortunately, it's all true. At bottom, "Black Mass" presents a haze of divided allegiances and moral ambiguity, that may well shake your faith in our government-appointed protectors.
Looming large over the whole story is the imposing figure of James J. Bulger Jr., or "Whitey Buljah" as he is more commonly known around these parts. Long before the Bloods and Crips were household names, Bulger emerged from a culture where street gangs were omnipresent and career options for adults were mostly restricted to the Armed services, politics, factory and police work, or crime. Unfortunately, Whitey Bulger never quite outgrew the gang culture of his youth, and he proved exceedingly skilled at the crime profession. As intelligent as he was soulless, Bulger graduated from street enforcer to bank robber (with a stint in Alactraz along the way) to organized crime kingpin with his hand in all things illegal as the head of the vicious Winter Hill Gang. Along for the ride was the aptly nicknamed Stevie "The Rifleman" Flemmi, a barbaric killer whose Mafia connections made him a perfect stoolie in the Boston FBI's war against the Mafia.
It was in 1975 against the backdrop of the FBI's battle with La Cosa Nostra that FBI agent John Connolly, who emerged from the same projects as Bulger, crafted a plan to bring Whitey and Flemmi into the Bureau's fold as informants. It sounded like a sweet deal for all those concerned: Bulger and Flemmi got to take out the Winter Hill Gang's competition, and the FBI got a well-placed ally in its effort to bring down Boston's ruling Angiulo family. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way. The FBI did manage to bring down the Angiulos, due largely to its now-legendary wiretapping operation at Gennaro Angiulo's headquarters, but Bulger and Flemmi remained connected to the FBI long after they had outlived their usefulness. In fact, as this book makes clear, the two gangsters greatly enlarged their stature in Boston's underworld during the 1980's, and they did it with the full knowledge and even collaboration of the FBI.
As O'Neill and Lehr explain, the shared South Boston origins of Bulger and Connolly, which seemed like such an asset back in 1975 when Connolly was recruiting Whitey, ultimately became a liability. Coming from a tight-knit, tribal culture like Southie, Connolly couldn't exactly be counted on to maintain his objectivity in dealing with Bulger, whom he even came to refer to as a "good bad guy." An even deeper problem, though, was John Connolly himself: a smooth-talking lady's man who liked the high life a bit too much, Connolly eventually became virtually indistinguishable from his prized informants. Hanging out with Bulger and Flemmi and accepting their gifts, Connolly didn't just look the other way while Bulger, Flemmi & Co. enlarged their empire and the bodies piled up; he was an active assistant in their operation. Although they were frequently pursued by the Massachusetts State Police, local detectives, and even the DEA, the two gangsters were virtually untouchable.
Perhaps even worse, O'Neill and Lehr make it clear that the FBI's mishandling of its two prized informants went beyond John Connolly's corruption to encompass a massive institutional failure. With Connolly corrupted and a series of supervisors compromised, the Bureau's guidelines for oversight of informants became essentially null and void. Falsified reports that exaggerated Bulger and Flemmi's usefulness while understating their criminal activities became the norm, and even those in other law enforcement agencies who suspected something amiss had their efforts blocked. One painful lesson to be drawn from this book is that the law is only as strong as those who enforce it. When those charged with stopping crime drift to the other side, where do we turn then?
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Title: Street Soldier: My Life as an Enforcer for Whitey Bulger and the Irish Mob by EDWARD J. MACKENZIE, PHYLLIS KARAS, ROSS A. MUSCATO ISBN: 1586420631 Publisher: Steerforth Pub. Date: 10 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Underboss: The Rise and Fall of a Mafia Family by Gerard O'Neill, O'Neill, Dick Lehr ISBN: 1586481088 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Deadly Alliance: The FBI's Secret Partnership With the Mob by Ralph Ranalli ISBN: 0380811936 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: 03 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: All Souls: A Family Story from Southie (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Michael Patrick MacDonald ISBN: 034544177X Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 03 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Westies: Inside the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob by T. J. English ISBN: 0312924291 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1993 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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