FBI'S BARGAIN WRITTEN IN BLOOD

Blind Eye Turned To Mob Informers

BOSTON - For more than 20 years, FBI headquarters knew that its Boston
agents were using hit men and mob leaders as informers and shielding them
from prosecution for serious crimes, including murder, The Associated Press
has learned.

Until now, the still-unraveling Boston FBI scandal has been portrayed
largely as the work of a handful of local agents, mavericks willing to deal
with the devil to bring down a Mafia family.

But documents obtained by the AP directly connect FBI headquarters in
Washington to a pattern of collusion with notorious killers.

The AP found 20 memos from Boston agents to the FBI director's office,
along with six replies, showing that headquarters was told of the abuses
and condoned them.

Written between 1964 and 1987, the memos made it clear to Washington that
the informers had killed and were likely to kill again, describing one of
them as "the most dangerous individual known" in the Boston area. The memos
also alerted headquarters that two of the informers were crime bosses,
active "at the policy-making level" of criminal enterprises in Boston.

Headquarters also knew that its Boston agents were shielding the informers
from other investigative agencies. It knew that one informer who
masterminded a murder was allowed to go free as four innocent men were sent
to prison in his place.

J. Edgar Hoover, William Sessions and William Webster headed the FBI in the
years when the memos were written. Hoover is dead; Webster and Sessions
declined to be interviewed. It is unknown if any of them read the memos.

It is uncertain who at FBI headquarters did, but someone was paying
attention. In the mostly unsigned responses found by the AP, the director's
office welcomed the informers and praised their FBI field handlers.

A spokesman for the FBI in Washington declined to comment, citing ongoing
investigations and lawsuits.

The AP found the memos in federal court files and in the records of a
congressional committee investigating the abuses.

More than $1 billion in lawsuits have been brought against the government
by victims of crimes committed by the informers while they were under FBI
protection.

The roots of the scandal lie in the 1960s, when the FBI came under pressure
from the public and Congress to crack down on the growing power of the Mafia.

In Boston, FBI agents responded by recruiting two hit men as informers and
by forging an alliance with the Winter Hill Gang, a group of vicious thugs
eager to seize control of the rackets from the Patriarca Mafia family.

The nature of the arrangement, as disclosed in recent criminal proceedings:
In return for information on the Mafia, Boston agents looked the other way
as the Winter Hill Gang sold drugs, stole and murdered, even tipping off
members when state police or federal drug agents were on their trail.

Both sides got what they wanted. The Patriarca crime family was devastated
by federal prosecutions, and the Winter Hill Gang took over Boston area
rackets.

The arrangement stayed secret until 1995, when Massachusetts state police
and federal drug agents finally built a racketeering case against the
Winter Hill Gang, and the story began to tumble out.

So far, one former FBI agent, John Connolly, has been convicted of
racketeering and obstruction of justice and awaits sentencing, and another
was granted immunity for testimony. Both had accepted bribes from the
informers they were protecting.

The hit men Boston FBI agents recruiting Vincent J. Flemmi as an informer
knew what he was from the start, and they made sure the director's office
did, too.

Flemmi spoke of "plans to become recognized as the No. One 'hit man' in
this area," Boston agents told Washington in a June 4, 1964, memo.

At least four field memos informed headquarters that Flemmi planned to kill
a small-time hoodlum, Edward "Teddy" Deegan, in a dispute over money.

Hours before the murder, Boston agents reported that mob enforcer Joseph
"The Animal" Barboza had joined the plot.

Deegan's body turned up in an alley in Chelsea, Mass., on March 12, 1965. A
week later, a memo to headquarters named six men, including Flemmi and
Barboza, as the killers and described the murder, right down to who fired
the first shot.

But the bureau, it seemed, didn't want Flemmi in prison. It wanted him on
the streets, as an informer.

On June 4, 1965, FBI records show, the director's office demanded a
progress report. Was he ready to inform?

Yes, Boston replied, adding that Flemmi was suspected in eight murders and
that "from all indications, he is going to continue to commit murder."

Soon, FBI memos show, agents also recruited Barboza, convincing him that
his Mafia employers had turned on him.

In a June 20, 1967, memo, Boston agents told headquarters that Barboza was
the most dangerous man in Boston, "a professional assassin responsible for
numerous homicides." He was also unreliable, a man willing to encourage
perjury to avoid a long prison term, Boston reported. Barboza also had
vowed never to incriminate his friend, Flemmi.

But with the promise of a light sentence for the Deegan murder, Barboza
became a star witness in three Mafia trials. A Massachusetts jury trusted
his word and convicted six men in the Deegan case. Flemmi and two others
identified as the killers in the memos to FBI headquarters were never charged.

Instead, FBI files show, the bureau stood by as Barboza's false testimony
convicted four men who were innocent. Two died in prison. The others were
released in recent years, exonerated when the scandal finally broke.

Barboza had implicated two of them to settle street grudges. The other two
were known mob figures.

After the convictions, a July 31, 1968, field memo requested commendations
for Barboza's handlers. Hoover sent a personal reply:

"The successful prosecution of these subjects was a direct result of your
noteworthy development of pertinent witnesses."

In return for his testimony, Barboza was released after five months and
relocated with a new identity.

Before long, however, he was threatening to recant his testimony unless
given $9,000 for plastic surgery to change his appearance.

If Barboza recanted, convictions "might be overturned and plunge the
government into protracted and acrimonious litigation," federal prosecutors
Edward F. Harrington and Walter T. Barnes warned their supervisor in
Washington. In their Feb. 12, 1970 memo, they urged that Barboza be given
the money.

Six months later, Barboza did recant - but soon changed his mind and stood
by his original story.

Barnes, now retired, said that as best he can recall, some money was
approved for Barboza. At the time, he had no reason to believe Barboza's
testimony was false, he said. Harrington, now a federal judge in
Massachusetts, would not comment.

In 1976, the New England Mafia found Barboza and exacted its revenge,
shotgunning him on a San Francisco street.

Flemmi died in prison in 1979 after Massachusetts authorities convicted him
of attempted murder in another case.

The bosses James J. "Whitey" Bulger and Vincent Flemmi's big brother,
Stephen, nicknamed "The Rifleman," were just rising in the crime world when
Boston agents recruited them as informers. Agents told headquarters what
kind of men they were.

On Feb. 8, 1967, for example, Boston agents told the director's office that
Stephen Flemmi was being upgraded to a "top echelon" informer, even though
he was suspected "of possibly being involved in gangland slayings."

By 1981, the bureau had adopted new rules saying that informers "shall not
participate in acts of violence" or "initiate a plan to commit criminal acts."

Yet in 1983, when Bulger was upgraded to "top echelon," a field memo said
he was "the titular head of the Winter Hill mob and as such sits as an
equal at the policy-making level" with New England Mafia leaders.

Throughout the 1980s, state police tried to build a case against Stephen
Flemmi and Bulger, but the pair were always one step ahead of them. The
reason: Boston agents tipped them off, testimony in recent criminal cases
has revealed.

There is evidence that FBI headquarters sometimes lent a hand.

In 1983, FBI agents in Oklahoma suspected the pair in the murder of Roger
Wheeler, the head of World Jai Alai, who was shot in Tulsa after
discovering that someone was skimming money from his business.

When Oklahoma agents sought to question Bulger and Stephen Flemmi, Robert
Fitzpatrick, then deputy chief of the bureau's Boston office, blocked the
interrogations.

He was instructed to do so during a meeting in Washington with top FBI
officials, Fitzpatrick told the AP.

"It was to protect Whitey Bulger," said Fitzpatrick, now retired.

However, even the FBI could not protect the informers forever.

Today, Stephen Flemmi is serving 10 years for obstructing justice and other
offenses. He awaits trial on federal racketeering charges linking him to 10
slayings.

Tipped by an FBI agent, Bulger fled and remains at large. He is under
indictment for racketeering and blamed, with his gang, for 21 killings,
including 11 while he was an informer.