WHEN A BETRAYAL MEANT REAL TIME

The yellowing clippings tell an eerily familiar tale of a federal law
enforcement official gone over to the dark side.

It was a tale of envelopes stuffed with cash, a fancy boat and favors done
for bad guys, including a heads-up so one bad guy could hit the road just
ahead of a federal indictment.

It was a pretty sad story, too. By all accounts David P. Twomey was a real
wunderkind back when he was appointed an assistant U.S. attorney at age 28.
He went on to work as a special prosecutor for the New England Organized
Crime Task Force until he left in 1984 for private practice.

But a year later it all caught up with him. He was indicted by a federal
grand jury, charged with accepting $210,000 in cash and a 30-foot speedboat
from a drug kingpin in return for favors rendered. Twomey was accused of
providing Frank J. Lepere - convicted of smuggling $25 million worth of
marijuana into the country - information on tapped telephones, surveillance
and ultimately his pending indictment.

For years state police, the FBI and agents from the Drug Enforcement
Administration were frustrated by the fact the Lepere was always one step
ahead of them. They knew there was a leak, but it would take them years to
find it.

But when they did . . . there was no room for doubt or for forgiveness, and
no mercy for someone who abused the public trust.

Lepere got five years. Twomey got 16 years, served five and was released in
1991.

The reason for revisiting this piece of nearly ancient history is obvious -
as obvious as those sickening pleas for compassion for ex-FBI Agent John
``Zip'' Connolly.

As Twomey was led away following the jury verdict, U.S. District Judge
Andrew Caffrey told him, ``You let me down. You let us all down.'' That's
the way those who would betray the entire criminal justice system back then
were treated. Then-Assistant U.S. Attorney (now a state judge) Janis Berry
called him a ``traitor to justice.''

What Twomey did was wrong and it was disgusting, but no one ever ended up
buried in a pit because of the guy he protected. Today James ``Whitey''
Bulger, charged with 19 murders, is still enjoying the summer sun somewhere
on this earth because of Connolly.

Ah, if only U.S. District Judge Joseph L. Tauro has the same level of
righteous indignation as Judge Caffrey when he sentences Connolly in
September.

Even there Connolly has already been cut a much larger break than Twomey,
who was immediately hauled off directly from the courtroom by federal
marshals to await sentencing one month later. Connolly meanwhile gets the
summer to noddle around while his lawyers bombard the court with pleas for
his acquittal.

Sure, the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) law under
which Connolly was convicted is a tangled web through which his lawyers hope
they can cut him a large hole. But in their motion for acquittal this week
they had to concede:

``The most the government showed . . was (1) that in late 1994 and early
1995, Mr. Connolly may have alerted Bulger and [Stephen] Flemmi to their
impending indictments, (2) that more than two years later Mr. Connolly may
have cooperated with [Kevin] Weeks and Flemmi to send a letter to Judge
[Mark] Wolf, and (3) that a year after that Mr. Connolly may have given
Flemmi an idea about how to more convincingly perjure himself.''

Just an aside, here, but what part of ``guilty'' do you suppose they didn't
understand?

The brief continues, ``Viewing the record in the light most favorable to the
prosecution, all that the government proved here was a long-term but
non-criminal association, followed some years later by sporadic criminal
activity.''

Well now, by that standard Connolly probably shouldn't be sent to the
slammer, but to summer camp. Oh, sorry, that's actually close to the truth
of what's happened to him so far, isn't it? But September should bring
justice - real justice for a real betrayal just as it did for Dave Twomey.