WASHINGTON, May 3 -- A former FBI agent told a congressional committee Thursday that he did not hide evidence that would have exonerated an innocent man for the 1965 murder he spent 30 years in jail for-despite having written numerous memos that named other men as suspects.
Former Special Agent H. Paul Rico told the House Government Reform Committee that despite providing a witness-Joseph "The Animal" Barboza-whose testimony convicted Joseph Salvati and several others for the murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan in 1968, he did not tell defense lawyers about informant reports that named several other men as the culprits.
But Rico insisted that he only supplied Barboza to the prosecutors and did not knowingly allow him to commit perjury, adding that he assumed that someone else had supplied a plethora of information pointing the finger at others to the defense.
The testimony came as a shock, because Rico had previously said-through his attorney William Cagney-that he would refuse to testify unless granted immunity from a federal taskforce currently investigating the FBI use of informants in organized crime investigations over the last three decades.
Salvati, Peter Limone, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco were all convicted for the Deegan murder-along with one of the real killers Roy French-and all except Salvati were sentenced to death. Salvati received life without the possibility of parole and the other death sentences were commuted to life after the Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty in 1972. The men were convicted-without any corroborative evidence-on the testimony of Barboza, who admitted to participating in the crime.
Evidence unearthed by a Justice Department task force investigating the use of informants by the FBI exonerated Salvati and Limone in January this year. Tameleo and Greco both died in prison.
The House Government Reform Committee subpoenaed Rico and his colleague Dennis Condon to testify as part of an investigation into the FBI's use of informants.
The inquiry has potentially far-reaching consequences, and at its heart raises a disturbing question: In an overzealous effort to defeat the mob, did the FBI, in effect, become a partner in crime with mobsters in Boston and possibly elsewhere?
Led by Chairman Dan Burton, R-In., the committee pressed Rico for details of the Deegan investigation after a slew of internal FBI memos, local police reports and the testimony of two lawyers raised questions about the FBI's role.
F. Lee Bailey, who represented Barboza in later proceedings, and Joseph Balliro, who represented Tameleo in the Deegan trial, testified Thursday that Barboza later tried to recant his testimony and was discouraged and threatened by the FBI from doing so in 1970.
In response to the questions about why Salvati and the other men were convicted despite repeated statements from informants that named other suspects, Rico said that informant testimony was difficult to handle, compared to eyewitness testimony supplied by Barboza.
Rico said he had sent memos to FBI officials that detailed informant reports that Vincent James Flemmi had threatened to kill Deegan, including a report that Deegan's murder had been approved by reputed New England Mafia boss Raymond Patriarca and a dry run of the killing had been performed two days prior to the March 12, 1965 murder.
He also said he delivered an informant report that was sent to then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover a week after the murder which reported it had been committed by Vincent Flemmi, Romeo Martin, Ronald Casessa and Roy French. Only French was convicted of the crime with the others who were later exonerated.
Under questioning from Burton, Rico denied that Steven "The Rifleman" Flemmi, Vincent's brother, was the informant who named the alleged killers.
When Burton asked him who the informant had been, Rico replied, "I don't know."
When Burton followed up by asking whether Steven Flemmi was the source, Rico tentatively denied it.
"I don't think that Stevie Flemmi would have given me his brother," he said. "I'm under oath and pretty confidant that it wasn't him."
Investigators and the committee suspect that Barboza added Salvati to his murder testimony to obscure the role of Vincent Flemmi in the killing and that the FBI either encouraged or turned a blind eye to the perjury because they wanted to protect Barboza's credibility in other mob trials. They also suspect that steps were taken to protect Steven Flemmi's role as an informant for the FBI.
When Rico denied that Steven Flemmi was the informant, Burton hastily called a recess, concerned-according to committee sources-that Rico might have committed perjury because of previous statements he had made that Flemmi was a top FBI informant. The legal counsel for the committee was concerned that if Rico did not understand the grave nature of the proceeding, his statement might have implications for the justice department task force investigating the case.
Burton reconvened the committee and read a stern warning to Rico that he was under oath, had the right to a lawyer and could be prosecuted under federal law for making false statements.
But Rico remained defiant.
"I am not taking my counsel's advice," he said to the committee. "My counsel advises me to take the Fifth Amendment until you people offer me immunity."
According to committee sources, Chief Counsel Jim Wilson had already approached Rico during the recess to warn about the consequences of lying under oath to the committee.
"I'm 76 years old," the former FBI agent said, according to a witness. "What the f--k do you think you can do to me?"
Committee members-joined by Judiciary Committee member Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass.-pushed him on why he allowed Barboza to testify against Salvati andthe others when they had information that Flemmi wanted to kill Deegan. They also had evidence that Flemmi had taken part in the killing, and that a heavyset, bald man fitting his description was seen leaving the crime.
Rico was also asked about a statement that Barboza made to him and his partner, Dennis Condon, that Barboza would testify to several murders but would "never provide information that would allow James Vincent Flemmi to 'fry' but that he will consider furnishing information."
Rico said he did not remember such a statement-found in an FBI memo-and could not recall if it had been supplied to investigators on the Deegan killing.
Rep. Chris Shays, R-Ct., expressed disgust at Rico's inability to explain how so much crucial evidence was kept from the defense during the trial in 1967 to 1968, and surprise that he had chosen to testify. He also assailed the witness for his lack of remorse over having contributed to sending innocent me to prison for decades.
"My view is that you sent innocent men to jail and knew it, that you worked for organized crime and I never thought that you would come before this committee and testify," Shays said.
"We supplied the information we had available to local law enforcement," Rico replied. "I have faith in the jury system and the decisions that juries make."
"This is fascinating," Shays retorted. "How can you not get on bended knee and ask$(Salvati$)for an eternal pardon, even if you didn't know he was innocent. You don't seem to give a s--t."
When Shays asked Rico if he had any remorse at all for the situation, Rico responded belligerently.
"I feel we have a judicial system that has to eventually play itself out," he said. "It would be a nice movie, but no$(remorse.$)"
In his first public statement on the Salvati matter, current FBI Director Louis Freeh released a statement that said the allegations that the FBI ignored evidence were alarming and "warrant thorough investigation."
"Under our criminal justice system, no one should be convicted and sentenced contrary to information known to the federal government," he said. "As with the conviction earlier this week in the Birmingham civil rights bombing case, we cannot allow the egregious actions of thirty years ago to prevent us from doing now what is right and what must be done to ensure justice is ultimately served." Testimony touches CongressJoseph and Marie Salvati's tale of 30-years spent separated while Joseph was imprisoned for a murder he did not commit brought a congressional committee room to tears Thursday.
Members of the House Government Reform Committee, staff, journalists and audience members were visibly emotional as the Salvati family and their attorney, Victor Garo, explained how they fought for Joe's freedom, while fighting to keep a family together through phone calls, prison visits and occasional furloughs over three decades.
"From October 25, 1967, the date my husband was arrested, until January 30, 2001, when all charges were dropped, my life was extremely difficult," Marie Salvati told the committee with considerable understatement. "The government took away my husband and the father of our four children in 1967. My world was shattered. The wonderful home life that we shared was gone. I was looked down on by many."
Salvati was wrongly convicted in 1968 with four others for the 1965 gangland murder of Edward Deegan-on the now discredited testimony of Joseph "The Animal" Barboza, an FBI witness who helped plan the crime.
Chairman Dan Burton, R-In., lashed out at the FBI for its handling of the case in his opening statement.
"I think this whole episode is disgraceful," he said. "It's the greatest failure in the history of federal law enforcement."
Burton and other committee members repeatedly apologized to the Salvati family for the ordeal.
Garo took 25 years and put in over 20,000 hours of pro bono legal work in his quest to free Salvati, who was released in 1997. Two other men - who were also innocent-died in prison for the murder and Peter Limone was released earlier this year. But where the others were reputed mobsters with criminal records, Salvati had no ties to organized crime and was apparently named by Barboza only to protect a friend.
FBI memos since uncovered indicate that law enforcement authorities had credible information that others committed the murder, which took place in a Boston suburb. This evidence was never turned over to the defense and was only found last year by a Justice department taskforce investigating the use of informants by the FBI in the Boston area over the past three decades.
Despite this blatant disregard for his legal rights by the FBI - whose then-Director J. Edgar Hoover received memos that named other perpetrators for the murder just days after it happened - Salvati is not bitter toward the government that stole a huge portion of his life.
"As you all know, I have served 30 long and hard years in prison for crimes that I did not commit," Joe Salvati said. "However, I still consider our justice system to be the best in the world; but sometimes it fails, as in my case. I became a casualty in the war against crime."
Salvati thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham, who heads the task force that uncovered the exculpatory evidence, for freeing him from prison.
While this stoic testimony touched members of the committee, Marie Salvati's detailed account of working to keep her marriage and family intact through the ordeal choked the room with emotion.
"While my husband was in prison, there was a pact between us," she explained. "I would not inform him of problems at home and he would not inform me of any problems in prison. Both of us did our part to keep the family strong and together. From the beginning of his imprisonment I knew that it would be important for the children to have constant contact with their father. Almost every weekend, I would dress up the children and take them to the prison so they would have their father's guidance...."
With that, Marie Salvati was overcome with emotion and could not continue. Throughout the hearing room, members including Burton, Rep. Chris Shays, R-Ct., and Rep. Connie Morella, staff and reporters could be seen wiping away tears of frustration.
Committee spokesman Mark Corolla told United Press International that he had to leave the room because he was overcome.
"When I saw the chairman and$(Chief Counsel$)Jim Wilson choking up, I knew I had to get out before I started to sob. It's that sad," he said. Mob and FBI have violent history Little could Edward "Teddy" Deegan have known that his murder gangland-style in 1965 would be a key element three decades later in perhaps the most embarrassing chapter in the history of the FBI.
Deegan was a small-time Boston hood who was shot to death apparently because he had become a "problem" to others in the New England underworld.
He wasn't the only victim.
In the 1960s, bloody warfare raged on the streets of Boston and elsewhere in New England as Irish and Italian gangsters battled for control over lucrative criminal activities.
Overseeing it all for the Italian Mafia was Raymond L.S. Patriarca, the founderof the family that ruled New England for La Cosa Nostra.
Virtually nothing went on in loan sharking, prostitution, gambling, robberies, or protection rackets in New England without Patriarca's permission, and he got a cut from it all.
Patriarca ruled his evil empire from his base in the New England Coin-o-matic company on Federal Hill in Providence, R.I., for 40 years until his death in 1984. Under him was the Boston Mafia, run by Gennaro "Jerry" Angiulo and his four brothers from their headquarters in Boston's Italian neighborhood, the North End.
Irish gangsters based in predominantly Irish South Boston were quick to use violence to get and protect their slice of the action.
Gangland killings were commonplace as the factions vied for the illicit profits.
Deegan was just one of those whose activities resulted in Patriarca being asked to give permission for a "hit."
What's caught in the throat of the FBI now more than 30 years later is that not only did agents know in advance that Deegan was going to be "whacked," but knew who carried out the "hit" -- and then stood by lips sealed as four innocent men were charged, tried, convicted and sentenced for the crime.
Their silence apparently was designed to protect their underworld informants.
A congressional committee in Washington is now investigating the FBI and its relationship with such informants, a probe triggered by the recent disclosure of long-hidden FBI documents in which agents were told by an informant who really killed Deegan.
The documents indicate Special Agents H. Paul Rico and Dennis Condon knew Joseph Salvati, Peter Limone, Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo were innocent, but allowed the men to be framed to protect an informant, allegedly hit man Vincent James "Jimmy the Bear" Flemmi.
At least one of the documents was a memo to then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Two of the real killers were Flemmi and Joseph "The Animal" Barboza, one of the most feared hit men for the New England Mafia. Barboza, also known as Joe Baron, wanted to kill Deegan, but first had to get Patriarca's permission.
In an FBI memo, based on information allegedly provided by Flemmi, Patriarca was described as being "infuriated" and "enraged" that a person whose name had been blacked out of the memo "had the audacity" to give orders to Barboza and Flemmi to carry out the hit without prior approval from Patriarca.
"Patriarca told Gennaro J. 'Jerry' Angiulo that he explained to Flemmi that he was to tell (name blanked out) that 'no more killings were to take place unless he, Patriarca, cleared (them),'" the memo said.
Angiulo reportedly talked to Flemmi and explained that Patriarca thought Flemmi "did not use sufficient common sense when it came to killing people."
"Angiulo gave Flemmi a lecture on killing people," the memo said. If there was an argument, Flemmi should "get word to Raymond Patriarca who, in turn, will either 'OK' or deny" the hit.
Flemmi and Barboza allegedly wanted to kill Deegan because they were having a problem with him, and because Deegan was looking for an excuse to "whack" another person, whose name was blanked out in the memo. Patriarca, according to the memo, told Flemmi and Barboza to get more information about Deegan and then contact Angiulo, ranked second behind Patriarca, who would furnish them a decision.
Deegan was found murdered in Chelsea, Mass., on March 12, 1965.
An FBI memo dated two days previously said an informant had learned that Patriarca had put out the word that Deegan "is to be 'hit."
Former Philadelphia Mafia under boss Philip Leonetti explained in 1995 that nothing is done "without consulting the boss." He said the Mafia Commission, comprised of the bosses of the five New York families and the Chicago and Philadelphia families, set the rules for the Mob nationwide.
"You need rules in an organization so you don't have chaos," Leonetti said. He explained that the boss is supposed to OK all murders, get a kickback of all family business, set up meetings among members and decide when to admit new members.
In October 1962, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy proposed expanding the use of wiretaps in probes of organized crime.
The feds placed a bug in Patriarca's vending machine company office from March 1962 until July 1965, taping "business meetings" between Gennaro Angiulo and Patriarca in which they discussed the organizational structure of La Cosa Nostra. The so-called Patriarca crime family allegedly was part of a national organization headed by a commission that settled underworld disputes and set the jurisdiction of 25 or so similar organizations across the country.
Barboza became the government's key witness in a 1968 trial that resulted in four men, including Salvati and Limone, being unjustly convicted for the Deegan murder, despite the fact that Barboza admitted his own participation in the killing.
Agent Condon actually testified during the trial that Barboza's testimony was credible, even though FBI documents suggest he knew otherwise.
Attorney F. Lee Bailey, who at one point represented Barboza, said in 1970 that Barboza had told him he should try to "right the injustice which his testimony had caused." Bailey said Barboza confided that he had been assured that a conviction was unlikely, and in case of a conviction the Supreme Court would be expected to reverse the cases and "no permanent harm would be done to anyone whereas the government would have accomplished its primary objective: much publicity about prosecuting organized crime."
After the convictions were upheld, however, Barboza "became persuaded" that the four men might be executed for something they hadn't done," Bailey wrote, adding he passed on this information to law enforcement officials.
However, Bailey wrote, "I have had no response to my letter to the Attorney General asking for help in writing (sic) the injustice that Baron has caused." Bailey said law enforcement authorities had "every reason to believe that a terrible mistake has been made," but did nothing to correct it.
Salvati spent 30 years in prison and Limone 33, some on death row, before their 1968 convictions were tossed out last January, based on the newly revealed FBI documents. The other two unjustly convicted men -- Greco and Tameleo -- died in prison.
Barboza had apparently become bitter over the murder of two of his friends, and broke the Mafia's code of silence, becoming a government informant in the Deegan trial. Barboza's testimony subsequently helped put Patriarca away in prison on a conspiracy to commit murder rap. It was concern about his credibility in such later cases that allegedly led the FBI to allow his perjured testimony in the Deegan trial to go unchallenged.
On Oct. 6, 1966, at the height of gang warfare on the streets of Boston, Barboza was arrested, but he expected his Mafia bosses to bail him out. When they did not, his friends tried to collect bail money by shaking down businessmen in the North End, Angiulo's backyard, a fatal mistake. Both Arthur C. "Trash" Bratsos and Thomas J. DePrisco were found murdered on Nov. 1, 1966, and robbed of cash they had collected to help free Barboza.
Those murders prompted Barboza to turn against his former friends. His later attorney, John E. Fitzgerald Jr., testified before the National Gambling Commission that he was "subjected to all kinds of pressure" and threats to "exercise my influence over Baron (Barboza) in order to prevent him from testifying."
Larry Zannino, third ranked in the New England Mafia behind Patriarca and Gennaro Angiulo, after a meeting in December 1967, allegedly told Fitzgerald, "You're playing with dynamite."
On the night of Jan. 30, 1968, Fitzgerald turned on his car's ignition and caused two sticks of dynamite to explode. Fitzgerald lost his right leg.
After he wound up testifying against Patriarca and Gennaro Angiulo, Barboza became the first person to get a new identity under what would become the government's Witness Protection Program. It did him little good. He was gunned down in San Francisco on Feb. 11, 1976.
Despite some internal opposition, Patriarca's son, Raymond J. "Junior" Patriarca, took over as head of the New England Mob after his father died on July 11, 1984, but Junior would also wind up in prison. He copped a plea in 1992 for overseeing murder and drug trafficking during his reign. He was released in 1998 after serving eight years.
Authorities said Junior never attained the ruthless crime king status of his late father. Federal judge Mark Wolf said Junior was "a weak boss who could not lead a Brownie troop."
The Patriarca faction dominated the New England underworld since the 1940s, but declined steadily after the elder Patriarca's death. Boston mobsters reportedly planned to murder Junior if he refused to give up leadership. Those plans were never carried out, however, after Junior, in tears, was said to have begged for his life.
Junior apparently had tried to make peace with other Mafiosi at an alleged induction ceremony on Oct. 29, 1989, in Medford, Mass. What wasn't known to the gangsters was that the FBI had been tipped to the meeting by an informant and had planted a "bug" to tape the ceremony.
On the tapes, Patriarca Jr. is heard saying: "We're all here to bring in some new members into our family and more than that, to start maybe a new beginning." Some 17 other alleged mobsters were at the ceremony where four new members were inducted.
"Put all that's got started behind us," Patriarca said, "'Cause they (the four inductees) come into our family to start a new thing with us. Hopefully, they'll leave here with what we had years past. And bygones are bygones and a good future for all of us."
With the help of informants, the FBI also used tapes to break up the Boston Mafia run by the Angiulos. Gennaro Angiulo and brothers Francesco and Donato were convicted in 1986 for racketeering, based on 104 days of secret FBI tape recordings of conversations at the Angiulos' North End headquarters in 1981. Gennaro was sentenced to 45 years, Francesco to 25, Donato to 20, and another brother, Michele, to three years for gambling.
Gennaro Angiulo, described by an associate as an "evil genius," was also convicted a year later and sentenced to life for ordering a 1981 murder. Gennaro's name was first publicly linked to organized crime in testimony before the Senate Investigation Committee in 1963. He was identified by a Boston police official as an under boss for Patriarca. The oldest brother, Vittore Nicolo, a chief advisor, escaped trial because of illness.
There was a vital link between the Italian Mafia and the Irish mobsters, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, Vincent's brother. Stephen Flemmi had declined Patriarca Sr.'s invitation to become a member of the Mafia, and instead allied with James "Whitey" Bulger, who had taken over as boss of the Winter Hill gang, based in predominantly Irish South Boston.
Flemmi reportedly moved easily between the gang groups. He was trusted by, and frequently visited, both factions. He had longstanding ties to the Italian Mob and its new boss, Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme.
Flemmi and Salemme were both charged with blowing up Fitzgerald's car with the lawyer in it in 1968, but only Salemme was convicted. After Salemme got out of prison in 1988, he and Flemmi rekindled their friendship. Salemme, however, did not know that by this time Flemmi had become an informant for the FBI.
At the same time, according to prosecutors, Flemmi was telling the FBI about Salemme's attempts to gain control over the Boston mob. Flemmi's association with Bulger dates back three decades when both were members of the Winter Hill Gang.
Special Agent John J. Connolly Jr., who as a youngster in South Boston knew Bulger, recruited Bulger and Flemmi as underworld informants in the 1970s and acted as their handler for the agency.
Boston Magazine reported that Connolly told Bulger at a meeting in October 1973 that his organization was in danger from Italian competitors who were using friends in law enforcement against Bulger, and suggested he do the same. Two weeks later Bulger allegedly agreed and over the next 15 years the Boston FBI put dozens of La Cosa Nostra members in prison, including Gennaro Angiulo and three of his brothers.
Connolly over the years allegedly received money and real estate from Bulger, and was indicted in 1999 and 2000 for crimes he allegedly committed while handling Bulger and Flemmi as informants, including racketeering. Later a charge of obstruction of justice was added because he allegedly told Bulger that Brian Halloran was 'ratting' to the FBI that Bulger and Flemmi were responsible for the 1981 murder of Tulsa, Okla., businessman Roger Wheeler. With Connolly allegedly serving as a lookout, Halloran was murdered in 1982.
Bulger, who has been a fugitive since 1995 and is now on the FBI's Most Wanted list, has been charged with committing 19 murders, a dozen while serving as Connolly's informant. The Boston Herald quotes former associate Edward J. "Eddie" MacKenzie Jr. as claiming Bulger was responsible for as many as 80 murders. Stephen Flemmi has been indicted for 10 murders.
It was allegedly a tip from Connolly that allowed Bulger to flee in 1995.
With the disclosure that Flemmi and Bulger were FBI informants, it became increasingly evident that the FBI had decided to side with the Irish-dominated Winter Hill gang against what it considered the greater threat, the Italian Mafia.
Bulger provided federal authorities with information on local Mafia figures during the 1970s and 1980s, leading to the conviction of a slew of New England mobsters.
Lawyers for reputed Mafia figures have suggested criminals of Irish descent like Bulger were cultivated as informants by Irish-American FBI agents who targeted Italian-American mobsters.
Whether the congressional hearings will result in changes in the way the FBI handles underworld informants remains to be seen.
Salvati and Limone, meanwhile, are enjoying their new freedom with relatives, as their lawyers pursue lawsuits against the FBI to compensate the men for the decades they spent in prison despite their innocence.
