Boston Justice

Courtroom sketch of "Whitey" Bulger on Ebay for $1 million

2011-07-11T17:46:00.000-05:00

A courtroom sketch of captured fugitive James "Whitey" Bulger is for sale on Ebay, with bids starting at $1 million.

A joke? The sketch artist didn't think it was so funny. She sold the original sketch to Steve Davis, the brother of a woman allegedly murdered and dismembered by Bulger in the 1980s, at a discounted price of $250 because, well, he is a crime victim.

Today outside a hearing at federal court in Boston, Davis said a friend took a photo of the sketch and threw it up on Ebay. The seller goes by the handle getwhitey. The auction is set to end Thursday.

Davis, who has attended almost every court appearance in the Bulger saga since the mob boss was nabbed in Santa Monica June 22, was a bit cagey about whether the ebay posting estimated the price at $5 million was a joke.

"Everything is for sale," he said.

The cost of the FBI's deal with Bulger keeps mounting

2011-06-30T23:16:00.001-05:00

How many millions will Whitey Bulger cost taxpayers?

A federal magistrate today ruled Bulger is entitled to appointed counsel. Federal prosecutors made a valiant attempt to squeeze the Bulger family for the cost of Whitey's legal expenses. But as federal prosecutor Brian T. Kelly had to admit to the magistrate today, there is no case law to support such a demand.

It was all for show, the prosecution's saber rattling beseeching a judge to order Whitey's brothers Billy and Jackie to sign affidavits attesting to their long lost brother's empty pockets. Both brothers came to federal court today to watch Bulger try unsuccessfully to keep his case before Judge Wolf. The pair went MIA when a magistrate held a hearing about who would pay for his defense.

The taxpayers' tab for Bulger actually began decades ago in 1975 when the FBI made him an informant. It was the price the bureau paid for gathering intelligence about the New England Mafia and oh what a price. While an informant, Bulger stacked up the bodies, at least 19, according to investigators. Families of his victims have now won millions in judgments against the government.

Throw in the cost of the rest of the Boston FBI's deals with murderous criminal informants dating back to 1965, and the latter day cost of the bureau's Top Echelon Informant Program is well over $101 million in legal judgments so far.

What's a few million more on the taxpayers' dime now? The feds spent a few thousand more today for good measure. They brought Bulger into Boston via helicopter from the Plymouth County jail. (See Boston Herald photo by Stuart Cahill).

Then the court today appointed noted defense attorney J.W. Carney Jr. to head Bulger's defense against a massive racketeering indictment now before Judge Richard Stearns.

"I'm J. Carney. My pleasure," Carney said as he shook Bulger's hand during their first meeting at defense counsel table today. Later, Carney did his best John Adams-representing-the-British impersonation and opined about the U.S. Constitution's guarntee of a fair trial for all. The case no doubt will dominate Carney and his partner Janice Bassil's lives for the next decade.

Bulger brothers Billy and Jackie, who both have paid high personal prices for their allegiance to Whitey (Billy was ousted as UMass president but got to keep his pension and Jackie admitted to felony perjury charges that cost him his state pension), got front row seats today in federal court.

The star treatment finally put Steve Davis over the edge. Davis spent years not knowing what happened to his sister until Bulger's partner Flemmi admitted Bulger strangled her in 1981 when she tried to break up with Flemmi and dump the gang.

"Why do they get to go first?" Steve insisted as marshals ushered Billy and Jackie into court and the media and public began jockeying for seats.

Steve added a tirade about how much Massachusetts taxpayers are still paying for Bill Bulger's pension. The former state senate president declared publically he did not believe he was obligated to help authorities find his fugitive brother.

How many millions will informant Whitey Bulger cost taxpayers before all is said and done? Answer: a few million more.

Legal chess game begins in cases against "Whitey" Bulger

2011-06-28T15:49:00.000-05:00

The banality of evil seems to be settling in on the James "Whitey" Bulger saga. Bulger, 81, is shrinking before the courtroom watchers' eyes from legendary mythical gangster to little old con in an orange jumpsuit. He was silent at today's hearing, no cute comments, no waiving to the gallery.

Judge Mark Wolf gave him the chance to speak but he waived off the invitation, motioning to his lawyer Peter Krupp, who is soon to hand off the case to Max Stern.

Federal prosecutors have moved to drop the 1994 racketeering and extortion indictment that launched Bulger's run 16 years ago. The feds want to concentrate on a more powerful 1999 indictment charging Bulger with 19 murders.

Bulger's attorney called the move "forum shopping." If the older case is dropped, the case likely moves from Judge Wolf's courtroom to Judge Stearns.

Wolf, a former federal prosecutor himself, has bedeviled the U.S. Attorney's office in recent years. His hearings in the late 1990s exposed Bulger and his crime partner Flemmi as informants. The judge also found a prosecutor in another mob case committed misconduct by hiding evidence and he once ordered the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney to appear in his courtroom within an hour to face questioning.

Today Wolf did not immediately rule on dismissal of the older case. He sounded almost wistful, though, as he allowed that his role in the Bulger prosecution is likely to be short. He asked Bulger's defense to file their response to the feds' plan and set another hearing for Thursday.

The 1999 case against Bulger is the stronger case. Two witnesses in the older case have died while Bulger was soaking up the California sun. Focusing judicial and prosecutorial resources on the 1999 case also ensures families of Bulgers' alleged victims get a chance at justice while Bulger is still living.

One of those family members, Steve Davis, the brother of victim Deborah Davis, came to court today to see Bulger for the first time. Davis said he could hardly contain his rage. "I better not saying anything. It'll be the wrong thing," he said, choking back emotion.

Patricia Donahue, the widow of a man allegedly murdered by Bulger on the Boston waterfront in a 1982 mob hit on another man, said the family hopes the judge moves ahead on the murder cases as soon as possible. "He looks good in orange," she said of Bulger's garb today.

WCVB gets first photo of "Whitey" Bulger and Greig

2011-06-23T16:22:00.000-05:00

Bulger smiles in this first image of him in 16 years. WCVB-Channel 5 got the photo from law enforcement, delivering the first look at the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.

The day few ever expected: Bulger captured after 16 years on run

2011-06-23T11:18:00.001-05:00

Most Bostonians thought this day would never come. At 1 a.m. EST, the FBI Press Office tweeted that James "Whitey" Bulger and his companion Catherine Greig had been captured in Santa Monica after 16 years on the run.

The tip came in on Tuesday night after the FBI began a new Most Wanted ad campaign designed to reach older women watching afternoon tv who might know the looks of Greig, the loyal dog groomer now age 60 who fled with Bulger. Now 81, Bulger is accused of committing 19 murders while an FBI informant.

By 5:45 p.m. Pacific Time yesterday, FBI agents concocted a ruse to lure Bulger from the couple's third floor apartment at the Princess Eugenia apartments. He surrendered without a fight, agents said. A cache of guns and a "substantial" amount of cash were found in the unit.

Bulger and Greig used the alias Charles and Carol Gasko, federal authorities in Boston said today.

Jurors' lies, half-truths threaten Sampson death sentence

2011-04-15T14:22:00.000-05:00

A federal judge is deciding whether jurors hid information about their lives that could overturn their 2004 verdict sentencing confessed double killer Gary Lee Sampson to death for carjacking and murder, Boston Justice has learned.

According to court papers just made public today, one juror lied on a questionnaire when he was asked if he had ever been charged with a crime. The juror was charged with driving to endanger in Brockton District Court in 1990 and driving with a suspended license in 1991, Sampson’s defense contends. Both cases were continued without a finding. The man was later sought for failing to pay his court fines.

Another juror said she had never been a crime victim. Sampson's defense team found out she had obtained a restraining order in 2000 against her then-husband whom she feared would shoot her. He was later charged in Newburyport with violating the order.

“As a victim of a crime (Juror B) may have harbored prejudices against criminal defendants. At the very least, that was the subject that the court and counsel would have explored on voir dire, and which could have led to an excusal for cause,” Sampson’s legal team said.

Federal prosecutors said Sampson’s defense team claims “even if true, do not amount to evidence of actual bias.”

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf has held several closed door hearings on the jurors’ answers on their questionnaires in what was the first Federal Death Penalty case in Massachusetts. He has not rendered a decision. The jurors’ names are blacked out in court papers.

Wolf presided over the long trial in which jurors saw graphic photos of a college student Sampson admitted tricking and stabbing to death and a senior citizen whom Sampson killed after the man gave him a ride.

During the trial, the judge kicked out one juror after seeing evidence the juror had failed to disclose his membership in “a civic group," which was not specified in court papers.

The third juror whose questionnaire is now under a microscope answered truthfully when asked if someone she knew had ever been in prison. She said her significant other was jailed on assault. She did not reveal in that answer that he had been a Northeastern University cop.

“If (Juror C’s) significant other was a former police officer, the Court and defense were entitled to know that information and explore it on voir dire to see whether (Juror) harbord any prejudices in favor of law enforcement,” defense lawyers argue.

Sampson admitted to killing 19-year-old Jonathan Rizzo of Kingston and 69-year-old Philip McCloskey of Taunton. Sampson also confessed to killing 58-year-old Robert "Eli" Whitney in New Hampshire during the week-long murder spree in 2001. Sampson, a drifter from Abington, did not know any of the men and claimed he had tried to turn himself in to the Boston FBI before the murders.

Ex-FBI agent convicted of mob murder loses appeal

2011-03-02T16:59:00.000-05:00

Looks like James "Whitey" Bulger's FBI handler John J. Connolly will spend the rest of his days in prison. A Florida appeals court today just refused to overturn Connolly's 2008 conviction for leaking law enforcement secrets that got a man killed.

The Florida District Court of Appeal offered no written explanation for its ruling, despite Connolly lawyers' arguments that a complex technicality should spring the former G-man. Connolly now faces 40 years for the murder of John J. Callahan. (Bulger learned Callahan was cooperating with investigators and had him executed. His body was found in the trunk of his car in Miami in 1982. The feds cut a deal with the triggerman for his testimony against Connolly.)

Massachusetts federal prosecutor Fred Wyshak, whose work on a groundbreaking investigation exposed the FBI's corrupt relationship with the murderous informant, told the Boston Globe that the Florida court must have decided the technical issue didn't violate Connolly's rights and wasn't enough to tip the verdict.

"Justice was done. The evidence was clear that Connolly participated in the murder of Callahan," Wyshak said.

Mob watchers speculate now is the time for Connolly to finally become a rat, that dreaded of all species in the Irish mob. He could have been a free man later this year after serving a federal sentence for racketeering with Bulger if he had won this appeal.

The only way Connolly can trim his prison sentence now, however, is if can lead the feds directly to the 81-year-old fugitive Bulger, who escaped arrest on a tip from Connolly in 1995.

Whistleblower pockets $96 million after exposing GSK plant's mismanagement

2010-10-28T18:37:00.005-05:00

Former Glaxosmithkline quality assurance manager Cheryl Eckard fought back tears as she stepped up to the microphones outside federal court Tuesday.

Perhaps she had thought about this day, imagined it during the years she fought to convince the British drug giant to stop breaking manufacturing regulations at its huge Puerto Rico plant.

Instead of fixing problems, GSK lied to the FDA and allegedly retaliated against Eckard. She was fired in 2003 and filed a whistleblower lawsuit (known as a qui tam) the next year.

Eckard is now $96 million richer thanks to the the largest whistleblower settlement in U.S. history.

“This is not something I wanted to do,” said Eckard, 51, of Raleigh, North Carolina. “But because of patient safety issues it was necessary. I took no joy in knowing it took a qui tam case to bring the company around.”

GSK this week admitted to selling adulterated drugs from its facility, including ineffective anti-depressants (Paxil) and diabetes drugs (Avandia), and will pay a $150 million criminal fine plus a $600 million settlement with 17 states for Medicaid fraud.

The Puerto Rico plant, which once supplied $5.5 billion of GSK products, has been closed. No charges have been brought against any individuals. It was unclear whether plant managers Jose Luis Rosado and Adalberto Ramirez were ever disciplined.

In court papers, Eckard also says she clashed with her supervisor Diane Sevigny back in NC over Eckard’s insistence on safety compliance at the plant and new concerns that drugs were being illegally diverted to Latin America.

The Justice Department’s investigation found no evidence of harm to patients from the adulterated and sometimes contaminated GSX drugs. An antibiotic ointment for children was another one of plant’s products.

When Eckard was fired in May of 2003, a month after giving seven GSK managers a detailed report on the problems at Cidra, she still kept trying to get GSK’s top leaders to fix their plant, she said.

She phoned the CEO in London, and the company’s general counsel in the U.S. She says she was ignored. In August that year, she tried calling GSK compliance personnel and got the brush. That’s when she dropped a dime to the FDA.

Flanked by her lawyers and wearing a 3-inch silver cross around her neck, Eckard this week spoke of losing many friends who had been coworkers. “It has been a very difficult eight years for me and my family,” she said.

She hopes the case stands as a warning to companies who try to skirt regulations by taking their manufacturing plants offshore. “I hope they understand now no matter how far they go, they are still responsible for manufacturing safety and compliance,” Eckard said.

What about club owner's claims of paying off police?

2010-10-25T10:33:00.010-05:00

Notorious crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger used to say Christmas was for cops and kids, according to his underlyings.

Bulger’s alleged palm-greasing of Boston Police used to be considered the stuff of a bygone era, a world of brown leisure suits and an elevated highway slicing through downtown Boston.

Then came a bombshell last week in federal court. “Uncoperative” cooperating witness Ronald Wilburn, the 71-year-old nightclub entrepreneur who took part in an FBI sting operation against a state senator and city councilor Chuck Turner, testified he paid off several BPD officers as recently as 2004.

Wilburn testified his club Mirage at Estelle’s routinely paid extra cash to cops who worked lucrative details. He also said he paid cash to a police official outside police headquarters in 2004. He has given varying accounts of the amount he paid, ranging from $800 to $10,000.

Wilburn’s explosive charge from the witness stand amid Turner’s corruption trial got buried in media accounts. Courtroom watchers were too hypnotized by Wilburn’s face-off with federal prosecutor John T. McNeil over Wilburn’s claims the feds promised him anonymity.

He says he’s been outed and misused by officials bent on destroying two prominent black politicians – Turner and Dianne Wilkerson, who admitted to corruption and is awaiting sentencing.

One thing is for sure, the FBI has known for several years now about Wilburn’s claims of paying off police. A BPD spokeswoman told reporters last week that the investigation is ongoing.

Meanwhile, two former stars of Boston’s black political circles are in disgrace, and the five-year statute of limitations on those alleged payoffs to cops has ticked away.

Police claim Cape sex predator tricked victim in Wal-Mart parking lot

2010-09-28T10:41:00.013-05:00

Lance Porter, 36, looks like a nice guy. He’s kind of handsome. Sometimes he walks his puppy around his Cape Cod neighborhood when the kids are waiting for the school bus, neighbors tell reporters.

Porter, however, is a Level 3 sex offender who was convicted in 1996 of dragging a 14-year-old girl into his van, taking her to some woods and raping her.

He served 12 years in prison.

Now police claim he is the predator who tried to kidnap a woman in a Wareham Wal-Mart parking lot on Friday night and put her in a van. The woman fought off her attacker, biting his hand when he tried to muffle her screams. A witness says he saw the man choking her. She broke free and the attacker drove off. He had lured her out of her car by telling her she left shopping bags on the roof of her vehicle.

The early evidence against Porter is heavy. The victim gave a partial license plate number to police and they tracked the plate to Porter’s van. He also allegedly had bite marks on his hand, police claim.

The victim, who is 36, told the Boston Herald, “I’m a little feister than I thought. I just hope he can’t come around anymore and can’t hurt anybody anymore.”

Authorities feared Porter would do something like this ever since a Plymouth County judge two years ago denied the district attorney’s call for him to remain in custody under civil commitment laws after his sentence for the rape was completed.

Bridgewater State Hospital doctors had ruled he was not sexually dangerous. Judge Charles M. Grabau had to follow the law in his evaluation of Porter. Critics are now assailing Grabau for failing to be an activist judge and a psychic.

Porter himself told reporters three years ago he felt cured. “I don’t feel as though I pose a threat,” he told the Patriot Ledger then. “I feel as though I’ve paid my debt.”

Ironic words this week after his arrest.

Who killed Susan Taraskiewicz? Case still cold

2010-09-17T14:24:00.007-05:00

This week marked 18 years since the body of Susan Taraskiewicz, 27, a baggage handling supervisor for Northwest Airlines, was found in the trunk of her car 36 hours after she went out to get sandwiches for coworkers. One of the first female supervisors in the division, Susan was beaten, stabbed and strangled.

Police logs are full of unsolved murders of young women, cold cases with few clues. Susan's murder, however, came with cast of possible motives and unsavory characters. Federal investigators claim coworker Joseph Nuzzo told others just before her death that he feared Susan knew about his credit card theft ring and would talk to police. He was convicted of the credit card scheme and went to prison for five years. He told The Boston Globe he had nothing to do with Susan's murder.

Another coworker, who claimed he had a romantic relationship with Susan, plead guilty to obstruction of justice for lying to a federal grand jury investigating her death and went to prison for 18 months. Robert Brooks, who was once Nuzzo's usher at his wedding, admitted he lied when he denied talking to Nuzzo on the day of Susan's death.

Northwest worker Arthur Rizzo, of East Boston, served five years in prison for his role in the stolen credit card scam. In 2006, he was busted again for credit card fraud. He and 11 others in Boston and New York are suspected of posing as Homeland Security officials, calling Pakistani and Indian immigrants to steal their identities.

So why hasn't Susan's killer been brought to justice?

Theories in crime watching circles include speculation that a federal informant might have been involved in Susan's murder and is now being protected. It sounds far fetched until you recall similar deals with devils the FBI struck during the era of her killing.

A more likely theory however is that the mob ties to this murder have lips sealed and federal prosecutors have yet to bring charges powerful enough to break through the cloak of silence.

Susan's mother Marlene planned her usual vigil at Logan Airport this week on her daughter's behalf. She walks with a homemade sign demanding justice for Sue and won't let us forget.

The pizza delivery man's murder shakes up a city

2010-09-08T09:13:00.021-05:00

The murder of a 58-year-old Domino's delivery man for small cash and a pizza has awakened the city's consciousness. Two young men and a woman are charged with luring Richel Nova, (photo right) an immigrant from the Dominican Republic and a father of three, into a vacant Hyde Park home and cutting his throat.

Then they ate the pizza.

Outrage now pours from newspaper columns, web sites and the mayor's office. Defense attorneys made an idealistic attempt yesterday to save their clients from the possibility of tainted witness identification by asking the court to hide their faces from news cameras. The judge refused. One suspect pulled a hood tight over his head.

What emerges from early reports of the crime is a picture of three young people who alone probably would never commit such a brutal act. The 17-year-old woman, Yamiley Mathurin, who allegedly phoned Domino's for the pie from a borrowed cell phone, has no record. No clear evidence has emerged showing they intended to commit more than a robbery that night.

But in the harsh light of day and the law, the three are accused of a murder conspiracy in which exactly who ran the knife across a hard-working father's throat little matters. They all will pay the price, if convicted. (Photo: Defense attorneys try to shield the three suspects at their arraignment.)

WBUR today carries a poignant interview with a close friend of the young woman Mathurin. Aline Valery, 19, a high school junior, claims the trio showed up on her doorstep bloody and bearing the pizza box. (Mathurin had recently convinced her friend's family to take in her boyfriend, Alexander Gallett, 18, who is now accused of the pizza man's murder.)

Valery, Gallett, and the third murder suspect, Michel St. Jean, told lies to explain the blood stains on their clothes, she says. Police seized those clothes for DNA testing.

“It really sickens me," Valery told WBUR. "And [they] actually brought the box of pizza home and [were] offering me a slice of pizza…and [they're] really letting me eat this pizza and [they] know [they] just robbed somebody and killed them."

Sampson appeal grasps at straws to save him from execution

2010-08-30T12:58:00.010-05:00

Was confessed spree killer Gary Lee Sampson defense team so incompetent that a federal judge would overturn a jury's 2004 verdict to execute him?

Just a few hours into a Judge Mark Wolf's hearing in Boston today on Sampson's future, nothing has emerged so far to show federal death penalty expert David Rhunke botched the case.

Judge Wolf is hearing arguments about whether to re-open evidence about Sampson's brain damage and his defense team's strategy left jurors hearing more from experts than regular people who saw his strange behavior over the years.

Sampson admitted to killing three men, all strangers and essentially good samaritans, over six days in the summer of 2001. He asked a Vermont state trooper to shoot him when he was caught. Jurors weighed the heinous nature of the killings against Sampson's "mitigating" defense of mental illness and childhood abuse.

Defense attorney William McDaniels this morning argued Sampson's trial counsel failed to put real people on the stand who could have buttressed their portrait of Sampson as an eradict, impulsive, damaged man, whose troubles began when he fell 10 feet off a ladder onto his head at age 4. Psychological experts testified about him instead.

"This inadequate investigation resulted in a poor supported mitigation defense," McDaniels told the judge. "What was missing were witnesses who had first-hand knowledge of that trauma."

One of Sampson's other trial lawyers Robert Sheketoff had a Brockton Hospital emergency room report about Sampson's fall as child but did not share it with the rest of the team, according to the appeal lawyers. Sheketoff has so far offered no comment.

Federal prosecutors today argued defense experts did tell the jury about Sampson's head trauma at trial -- 10-12 incidents of head trauma, though jurors were never told about the hospital emergency room report.

"I don't see how one more would have made any difference," federal prosecutor George W. Vien told the court. The report says X-ray's of baby Sampson's swollen head were "NEG," or negative, prosecutors told the court.

Sampson's family abandoned him. His mother and brother refused to testify about claims that Sampson's father hit him. Jurors were told he was a wild child who once jumped off the roof of a Tedeschi's and banged his head on a dumpster, falling unconscious. A life of crime came later including numerous beatings at the hands of fellow inmates in North Carolina, where Sampson rarely defended himself. Jurors saw photos of Sampson's beaten face.

His lawyers also argue 17 other claims as grounds to overturn his execution.

The judge today said he is likely to toss out most of them but is looking back at the trial lawyers' behavior closely.

"It's the 'failure to investigate' claims that have the best prospect of surviving at this stage," the judge said. The hearing continues Tuesday.

Consumers scammed again in puny Classmates.com settlement

2010-08-17T14:31:00.021-05:00

Today's the deadline to claim your whopping $2 credit over those voluminous e-mails from Classmates.com claiming someone was looking to reconnect with you. They weren't.

Hundreds of thousands of consumers caught up in this scam should instead send a letter of objection to the federal judge reviewing the $9.5 million settlement agreement.

Those intriguing e-mails, which began back in 2007, were all a fake, according to a class action lawsuit. The settlement now before Judge Richard Jones in federal court in Seattle calls for consumers who were tricked into signing up for the site to get a $2 credit toward future activity.

Consumers who really fell for the scam and handed over anywhere from $9.95 to $39 for "gold status" so they could view the name of the long lost flame, friend or foe supposedly searching for them would get a measly $3 cash refund.

The two Seattle law firms allegedly representing consumers -- Keller Rohrback LLP and Kabateck, Brown Kellner LLP -- are slated to take home a fee of $1.3 million for their bare knuckles negotiating skills, plus hundreds of thousands more for their costs to bring suit. Lead plaintiff Anthony Michaels, by the way, gets $2,500, in compensation for getting scammed out of $15.

In court papers, plaintiffs' lawyers say they gave up because of an intricate defense Classmates.com's lawyers were cooking up to deny any liability. But had the case gone to trial, the company could have been forced to pay as much as $500 per fraudulent e-mail. Pretty high stakes to settle for measly $3 and $2 payouts. These lawyers wanted their payday.

Judge Jones should send this proposed settlement to the trash on Oct. 27 at the final approval hearing. Requiring Classmates.com to contribute $9.5 million to consumer rights groups would be more meaningful relief than a few bucks toward continued use of a failed product. Facebook buried this site long ago.

(The $9.5 million is a ceiling figure, by the way. The payout could be far less if class members don't put in their claims by today's deadline.)

As proposed, the settlement is nothing but a boon for Classmates.com and does nothing to get the attention of a company that still draws daily consumer complaints for its sneaky fine print. Site users say the company automatically renews the $39 annual memberships without giving consumers a chance to cancel. Some claim they have jumped through the hoops necessary to drop the service only to see it pop back up on their credit card statement, requiring more frustrating phone calls.

It's always a good day for fishing on the internet. Don't bite on this one, Judge Jones.

Supporters jam terror suspect's hearing in federal court

2010-07-20T20:15:00.021-05:00

Accused Al Qaeda wannabe Tarek Mehanna, a 27-year-old pharmacist from Sudbury, drew more than a 100 supporters this afternoon at a hearing in federal court.

The crowd of men and women, teenagers and small children were greeted at the doors of the federal courthouse by six U.S. Marshals carrying automatic weapons. Gunmen haven't been seen outside the court since the days immediately following 9-11.

There were so many supporters for Mehanna, who is accused of providing material support to a terrorist organization, that an overflow courtroom was created where they could view the brief proceedings on closed circuit television.

Several young boys, who waved at Mehanna as he entered the courtroom, wore hand-me-down suits a few sizes too big for them. One woman wore a headscarf with another scarf covering her lower face as she tried to soothe a fussy infant.

Shackled and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit from the Plymouth County Correctional Facility where he is held in solitary confinement for his own protection, Mehanna smiled at this supporters. He blew a kiss to his parents and brother, and gave a thumbs up.

He plead not guilty to a new indictment, which contains only a technical change to the language of the charges, which was spurred by a recent Supreme Court case. Mehenna is now accused of helping a terrorist organization. The original indictment said terrorists.

He was ebullient in the courtroom, chatting amicably with his lawyers J.W. Carney and Janice Bassil. At one point, a federal marshal verbally reprimanded Mehanna for turning around to see his wellwishers. Mehanna nodded and turned back to face the judge.

U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole set a tentative trial date for Oct. 3, 2011.

Prosecutors claim Mehanna sought training from Al Qaeda but was rejected and conspired with two other men to try to obtain weapons to kill mall shoppers for jihad.

Mehanna’s father, who is a professor at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy declined comment today.

At a “Free Tarek Awareness” gathering earlier this month at the Islamic Center of Worcester, Mehanna's father claimed federal agents jailed his son because the young pharmacist refused to finger others as terrorists.

“The charges stem from the fact that he refused to be an informant to the FBI. They did approach him several times, and they told him if you don’t accept our offer, we’re going to make your life hell. And they said it and they did it,” Ahmed Mehanna told a gathering of men at the center, according to a video posted on YouTube.

Mehanna’s family has portrayed him as a gentle cat lover, who is beloved by children at the mosque he attended.

During the “Free Tarek” event, an unidentified man read a poem he said Mehanna wrote in prison. The verses included:

“You are part of something big. We are not alone. We have one another, worldwide proof of many a sister and brother, who are all prepared to die for each other, a bond that no superpower can smother.”

After the hearing, a small group of protestors with signs chanted, "Free Tarek now!" outside the court. No tv cameras were present. Their only audience turned out to be the gun-toting marshals.

Serial killers' lawyers accused of botching arguments for his life

2010-07-19T15:03:00.007-05:00

“Do me a favor and shoot me… Just don’t hit me in the head. I got a friend who’s going to claim my body.”

Gary Sampson to Vermont State Police Det. Sgt. Ray Keefe, 2001

Appeal lawyers for confessed serial killer Gary Lee Sampson have a new theory why he killed three strangers nine years ago: Gary Lee fell on his head as a baby.

In newly unsealed court documents, his legal team says Sampson’s severe brain damage was never fully revealed to the federal jury who ordered him put to death for murder during a carjacking.

Sampson's crime spree began with a bizarre phone call to the FBI seeking protective custody for himself, Sampson claims. A clerk hung up on him.

Sampson eventually got law enforcement's attention when he surrendered following a two-week summer crime spree spanning three states. He killed a 19-year-old college student, a senior citizen and a neighbor who came to mow the lawn.

During his trial, Sampson’s own family offered little assistance to defense lawyers who were scrambling to offer evidence of “mitigating” factors that might spare his life. There was vague testimony from a psychologist about abuse by his father but no evidence.

Now Sampson's lawyers say a fall when he was 4 rendered him very sick and set the stage for a maladapted life. He was always in trouble, was a drug addict and a drunk, and spent 16 years doing prison stints before he caused so much misery.

“Mr. Sampson suffered a significant 10-foot fall at the early age of 4, hitting the back of his head and causing swelling, an injury so significant that it required the police to bring him to the emergency room,” his lawyers said in court documents.

Attorneys William E. McDaniels and Jennifer Wicht, who are from the D.C. firm Williams & Connolly, claim one of Sampson’s trial lawyers, powerhouse Boston defense attorney Robert Sheketoff, had the Brockton Hospital records documenting Sampson’s brain injury.

But Sheketoff (who most recently represented a Russian spy living in Cambridge) never showed the hospital records to the jury weighing Sampson’s life, or to lead defense counsel David Ruhnke, the lawyers claim.

There was some testimony at trial about Sampson's brain showing abnormalities. But his appeal claims high-tech brain scans conducted recently show far more damage than the injuries the jury learned about.

Federal Judge Mark Wolf has set arguments for late August.

Judge may punish government for 'bad faith' in defending FBI's framing of four men

2010-07-07T12:57:00.019-05:00

Photo: Attorneys Julianne Balliro, Michael Avery with Peter Limone and his wife Olympia in 2007

Taxpayers could wind up paying an additional $4 million on top of $101 million already awarded for the Boston FBI's framing of four men for a 1965 mob murder. Boston Federal Judge Nancy Gertner is currently weighing whether the Justice Department owes punitive legal fees for "bad faith" during the litigation.

Mary M. Leach, assistant director of the Department of Justice's Torts Branch which fought the civil suit for eight years, beseeched the judge at a July 1 hearing not to give the plaintiffs any more dough.

"There was never any deception or dishonesty in regards to the discovery process,” Leach said in a tone bordering on righteous anger. She called the plaintiffs' demands "excessive" and said the government was obligated to fight the case so hard "because the law was in our favor."

DOJ lost two appeals of the judge's 2007 award of $101 million to Peter Limone, Joseph Salvati and the families of Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo, men who both died in prison after their wrongful conviction in 1967.

During the civil suit, the FBI acted like a "pro se litigant," plaintiffs' lawyers charged. The bureau refused to cooperate with its own DOJ attorneys, blocking them from viewing documents because they didn't have security clearance. The judge was appalled.

"In terms of the dance the FBI did with the documents, that was, candidly, shocking,” Judge Gertner said last week. "To get the government to do what it should have done from the beginning, I had to threated to subpoena FBI Director Mueller."

The FBI eventually turned over thousands of pages. Many were heavily redacted. The bureau claimed it needed to protect the families of long-dead informants from the 1960s.

"There was no aspect of this case that was unaffected by the government's recalcitrance," said Joseph Burns, one of Salvati's attorneys.

Gertner could write blistering findings about the government's handling of the lawsuit over the past eight years. Perhaps she might even note the irony of how Salvati's attorney Victor Garo, who handled his case pro bono for 30 years, was suddenly audited by the IRS in 2006 during heated pre-trial preparations. (Garo viewed the audit as payback and later said the IRS found his tax payments were correct.) Other judges in the First Circuit have already commented repeatedly on DOJ's callous handling of FBI informant James "Whitey" Bulger's victims who filed suit.

But would any more reams of paper, mind-numbing hearings, or additional whacks at the taxpayers' wallet really stop corrupt agents and their protectors from framing innocent men ever again?

Harvard con man makes bail

2010-07-02T11:33:00.006-05:00

Adam Wheeler, the Delaware man accused of lying his way into Harvard and plagiarizing professors' work, has posted $5,000 cash bail after a month behind bars in Cambridge.

Wheeler, 23, was quietly sprung from the lock-up on June 15, Boston Justice has learned.

His father Richard Wheeler, a retired Delaware high school shop teacher, posted bail after letting Wheeler soak up the atmosphere of the Middlesex County Jail. Tough love, perhaps?

Prosecutors claim Wheeler, whose movie star looks in his booking photo won fans and prompted sales of "Free Adam Wheeler" T-shirts on campus, faked transcripts and forged letters to win admission to Harvard after getting kicked out of Bowdoin College in Maine for plagiarizing an essay. The English major claimed he was transferring from MIT and had perfect SAT scores, the DA says.

Harvard authorities say they discovered Wheeler's ruse in his senior year when he applied for a Rhodes' scholarship and a Fulbright. He was expelled last fall and kept up the lies to win admission to Stanford for the coming academic year, prosecutors said in court papers. Stanford has since rescinded their offer.

Wheeler is due back in court on Aug. 9 for a motions hearing. Trial is set for Feb 7, 2011, on 20 counts, including identity fraud and larceny of scholarships totally $45,000.

Harvard hoax con man still jailed on $5K

2010-06-10T16:10:00.027-05:00

Sad-eyed faux Harvard hunk Adam Wheeler should have been sneaking off with his purloined diploma this spring -- a newly minted Class of 2010 grad with a huge secret. But he got greedy and tried for a Rhodes Scholarship with phony credentials and plagiarized papers. He got caught and arrested.

But why is he still in jail? It's been almost a month and not even his parents will pony up his puny bail of $5,000 to spring him from the company of junkies, girlfriend beaters and thieves in the Cambridge Jail.

"He’ll be in custody until someone posts his bail, which no one has done,” his attorney Steven A. Sussman told reporters this week.

In court this week, Middlesex Prosecutor John Verner handed Sussman a stack of grand jury transcripts and other evidence about Wheeler's ivy league cons, including his alleged mea culpa in an e-mail to Yale. According to court documents filed by the DA, Wheeler notified Yale that "he had submitted false documents in support of his application."

(Wheeler tried to get into Yale after Harvard professors exposed him last fall as a plagiarist. He also tried to get into Brown with a forged letter of recommendation attributed to his Harvard Kirkland House Dean David Smith. He got into Harvard by claiming to be a transfer from MIT with perfect SAT scores.)

His scam also worked on Stanford. The DA revealed that Stanford accepted him as a transfer student slated to start as a junior this fall. The California school has since rescinded the offer after getting a call from Harvard's own detectives.

Wheeler is a troubled young man to say the least. But like the famous 19-year-old con man and imposter Frank Abagnale Jr. portrayed by Leo DiCaprio in the 2002 film "Catch Me If You Can," Wheeler's actions are probably driven by underlying psychological pain.

Abagnale's baggage was his parents' divorce when he was 16. Wheeler's demons aren't fully clear.

There are some clues. His character, as reported in a Sunday Boston Globe profile, seems fraught with perfectionism, grandiosity, and maybe depression. In high school, when he mislabeled a drawing in a drafting class, Wheeler insisted on doing the entire drawing over.

Before he was booted from Bowdoin College two years ago for academic dishonesty, the English major rebuffed professors who tried to help him by claiming his friend had just died in a motorcycle accident. "Just give me an F," he told one professor.

Wheeler's father was a shop teacher at his rural Delaware high school and also played classical guitar at their Methodist Church. His mother reportedly does some work as an interior decorator. His parents helped put the lid on his crimes when they ordered him to stop lying to a Yale admissions counselor during a phone call this year.

So what will the courts do with the young Delaware con accused of stealing $45,000 worth of prizes and scholarships?

All the publicity is likely to prod the Middlesex DA's office to try to hammer him.

However, consider a recent resume scandal and a white collar theft in the same county. MIT let its longtime dean of admissions Marilee Jones skate after she spent 28 years claiming she had degrees from three schools. A Middlesex Judge on June 3 gave no prison time to an accountant named Jonathan West, 41, who admitted to embezzling $109,000 from his employer over 10 years. He only has to pay it back.

Like DiCaprio in Abagnale's tale, Wheeler could use his own Tom Hanks, who played the wise FBI agent who eventually harnessed Abagnale's skills for crime fighting and helped him put to rest his fantasy of reuniting his parents.

Are Wheeler's parents broke? Or merely opting for tough love by leaving him in the can? I lean toward the tough love theory and wonder if perhaps too much "tough love" contributed to Wheeler's early decisions to cheat and "win" at any cost. Why else does a teenager do such things unless his parents' love seems all too conditional and he discovers he can't measure up?

Of course, there's another option. Maybe Wheeler wants to stay in the lockup to gather material for the only story he can't steal. His own.

Bulger's ex talks about their son, seeks book

2010-05-18T13:54:00.024-05:00

Just when Boston thought it heard every detail about mob kingpen James “Whitey” Bulger (except where he is), another old girlfriend comes out of the woodwork.

This one had his only child -- a darling, angelic blond boy named Douglas who died tragically from Reyes Syndrome at age 6 in 1973.

What Lindsey Cyr, who spent 12 years with Bulger, really wants now is a book deal and it’s about time one of the women in Whitey’s gang cashed in. His lieutenant Kevin Weeks is already on his second book and other men on the fringes of Bulger's life have sold their stories.

Cyr’s tale was first told in The Boston Globe earlier this year.

On Sunday, Cyr continued her rose-colored remembrances In an exclusive interview with Channel 5.

She was a 21-year-old legal secretary and model when she first met Bulger in a cafe, she said.

“He was gorgeous. There wasn’t anything not to be attracted to,” she told tv anchor Heather Unruh.

Adding herself to a long line of women seduced by the charming blue-eyed blond sociopath, Cyr stuck around even when Bulger revealed he had just done a long stint in Alcatraz for bank robbery before coming home to Boston in 1965.

By now, we also know Bulger was bisexual, procured 14-year-old school girls for sex from South Boston projects and strangled at least two women before mutilating and hiding their bodies.

Cyr, now 65, mistily remembers Bulger as a reluctant father-to-be, protecting his pregnant lover in the middle of a gunfight.

“Jimmy picked me up and put me down on the floor, and he’s on top of me trying to get a gun out, when the baby kicked him. In the middle of bullets flying he looks down at me and said, ‘What the f**k was that?’” Cyr recalled.

They broke up a few years after their little boy died from a reaction to aspirin given to him by a doctor. By the 1980s Bulger was playing father figure to the children of single mother Theresa Stanley, whom he later left for dog groomer Catherine Greig. At age 80, Bulger is allegedly still on the run 15 years later with Greig, whose photo the FBI just circulated in plastic surgery trade publications.

Bulger apparently never forgot the mother of his child. He called Cyr when he went into hiding in 1995 and again around her birthday in 2002, or 2003, she wasn’t sure which. She didn't tell the FBI about the second call until 2009, according to The Globe.

Lindsey became a mother again in 1982 and her son Nicholas recently found himself in a brouhaha with Major League Baseball. (He worked security for the Boston Red Sox and was fired after naming fellow Sox security staffer Jared Remy as his steroid dealer. Remy, the son of Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy, also was fired.)

If Lindsey Cyr truly is ready to tell all about her days with Bulger, minus the self-delusion rampant among most mafia mols, her story could add a compelling voice to the current shelf-load of Whitey-related gangster memoirs.

Feds won't appeal, will pay $101 mil to men framed by Boston FBI

2010-04-30T23:17:00.024-05:00

The rumor Friday afternoon was the Department of Justice was finally all done with Joe Salvati.

More than 40 years after the FBI framed him and three other men for a 1965 mob murder they did not commit, the federal government was going to pay them and their families for their stolen lives.

No more appeals. No more denying what a federal judge and two appeals court panels had already decided. Salvati, Peter Limone, and the estates of Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo would all get justice in the form of $101.7 million.

But lawyers for the men were still watching their computer screens at five minutes before 5, staring down the docket of the First Circuit where the FBI's lawyers had until 5 p.m. to seek certiorari with the Supreme Court.

Then, the wrenching saga was over with the tick of the clock. Five o'clock came and went without another sentence added to Case No. 08-1328, Limone et al v. the United States of America. U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner's July 2007 award of damages would stand.

Attorney Victor J. Garo phoned Salvati, 77, the client he has represented pro bono since the 1970s. The North End truck driver who spent 30 years in prison had to sit down when he got the news.

The U.S. Treasury will cut him a check for $29 million in a few months and give $1 million to his wife Marie, (photo above with her husband, their grandson, and oldest daughter).

Limone will get $26 million but may not have long to enjoy it. He faces trial in October on gambling conspiracy charges in superior court. Prosecutors contend he took over the remnants of the mob after serving 33 years in prison for the murder he did not commit.

The estate of Louis Greco, the decorated World War II veteran, who was in Florida at the time of the mob murder in Massachusetts and died in prison in 1995 at age 78, will get $28 million.

The estate of Henry Tameleo, who died in prison in 1985 at age 84 will receive $13 million.

In addition, the men and their lawyers -- Suffolk Law professor Michael Avery, Julianne Balliro, Austin McGuigan, Joseph Burns, Howard Friedman, William Koski and Daniel Deutsch -- will also get hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest accrued since the judgment came down in 2007, an additional cost taxpayers should never have had to bear.

Justice was delayed decades for Salvati, his family and the others. Today, justice wasn't denied.

DOJ still defending FBI framing of Salvati

2010-04-21T21:00:00.011-05:00

What if the FBI helped frame you for murder, and more than 30 years later, the truth came out?

What if you were a model prisoner and somehow kept your family in tact from behind bars thanks to the devotion of your spouse? What would happen when you came home?

If you think a big fat check would arrive as compensation for your lost life, meet Joe Salvati. (Photo: Salvati and his wife in prison visiting area in the 1970s.) A federal judge ordered the federal government to pay him $29 million almost three years ago. A federal appeals court upheld the award -- twice. And Salvati, now 78, still hasn't seen a dime.

The Department of Justice was supposed to decide whether to seek Supreme Court review by April 1. DOJ attorneys asked Justice Breyer for another month and now have until April 30.

Lawyers for Salvati, and three other men wrongly convicted of the 1965 mob murder of a mob associate, met with DOJ attorneys in Washington recently and emerged convinced the FBI's lawyers still want to drag the litigation out as long as possible.

The issue that could warrant Supreme Court involvement involves a difference between the circuit courts over the definition of malicious prosecution in the 1960s. It's hardly groundbreaking law at stake.

Fugitive Capozzi captured in Ky.

2010-04-18T10:24:00.008-05:00

Three days on the run in Kentucky horse country ended with the quiet capture of Derek Capozzi, a federal prisoner from Boston, around 5:45 p.m. Saturday.

A Lexington TV station reports Capozzi, 37, was spotted in the woods by two Kentucky brothers who joined the manhunt. One of the men was urinating in the woods when he says he spotted Capozzi with a bag of groceries. The men, who were carrying baseball bats, then called 911.

Federal Marshals released a photo showing Capozzi in handcuffs appearing bedraggled but calm. He was exhausted and put up no fight, according to law enforcement officials.

Surveillance cameras in the town of Versailles, Ky, had captured Capozzi walking through a Dairy Queen parking lot on Friday afternoon, a day after he kicked out the back of a transport van on the Bluegrass Parkway and eluded two deputies. He had somehow dumped his prisoners uniform for street clothes.

Some Kentucky news reporters have called Capozzi a member of the Boston Mafia. But that would be news to the 81-year-old head of the New England Mob, Luigi "Baby Shanks" Manocchio.

Capozzi was a member of a drug-dealing crew out of Burlington, Mass., that robbed other drug dealers and murdered a woman whom they feared would become a police informant. Before his escape attempt, Capozzi was slated for release from prison in 2046 at age 67.

Justice Department poised to take fight against Salvati award to Supreme Court

2010-03-03T14:53:00.013-05:00

Looks like the Justice Department will ask the Supreme Court to overturn a $101.7 million judgment against the government over Boston FBI agents who framed four men for a 1965 mob murder.

The Justice Department hasn't sought certiorari yet but government lawyers did win approval from Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer for an extension to file until April 1, according to a court analyst's letter obtained by Boston Justice.

An appeals panel in Boston in August upheld a judge's 2007 award to Joseph Salvati, Peter Limone and the estates of Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco who died in prison.

Would the Supreme Court take the case? Legal experts say it's quite possible. At stake is whether the federal government can be held liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress by hiding evidence from state prosecutors that the four men were innocent.

The men were convicted on the testimony of mob hitman Joseph Barboza, who was the first man in the Witness Protection Program. He murdered another man in California while under federal protection and was later gunned down by the mob in San Francisco.

Both Salvati and Limone are in their late 70s. They were wrongfully imprisoned for 30 years. Limone currently is under indictment on gaming charges.

Bailed-out banks dragging feet on modifying mortgages, suit claims

2010-02-24T15:43:00.013-05:00

Did Bank of America just punk the Obama administration and a 72-year-old lady from Salem?

A lawsuit filed in federal court in Boston claims the bank, which took billions in taxpayer bailout money, has permanently modified only 1 percent of the more than 1 million mortgages eligible for BAM's help under a U.S. Treasury program that Bank of America pledged to participate in as a condition of getting all that TARP help.

The figures are from a new Treasury Department report on the HAMP program.

Homeowners facing foreclosure since last year have been scurrying around trying to save their houses by filing paperwork required under HAMP.

One of them was Patricia Johnson, an elderly flea market vendor who dropped the ball on a $238,000 mortgage she took out in 2006 on the Barr Street home she owned for 20 years. She was 10 months behind when she filed for a loan modification under HAMP in July.

Bank of America accepted her application and she began paying $1,188 per month under what was supposed to be a trial period for three months. She made the payments on time and then Bank of America moved the goal post. They wanted more paperwork, more tax returns, more red tape, according to her attorney Gary Klein of Roddy Klein & Ryan of Boston.

Johnson still doesn't know if the bank will take her home, or not.

She is in legal limbo. Bank of America won't even tell her who actually holds her mortgage, which they sold to an investor. Her lawsuit includes a letter from the bank saying "regrettably, we can't tell you the name of the private investor."

With all the bundling and selling of toxic assets that led to the financial system's meltdown, it's possible Bank of America isn't even sure who holds the mortgage anymore.

Bank of America has yet to comment on the lawsuit.

Klein is asking Judge Rya Zobel to certify a class action. He's lodged a similiar suit against Wells Fargo for its actions involving a Boston man's loan modification.

By not living up to its agreement, "the bank is preventing homeowners from pursuing other avenues of resolution, including using the money they are putting toward TPP payments to fund bankruptcy plans, relocation costs, short sales, or other means of curing their default," the suit says.