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$100 million to four falsely convicted

BOSTON, July 27 (UPI) -- A judge in Boston ordered the U.S. government to pay $101.7 million in the case of four men who spent decades in prison after being wrongly convicted of murder.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said the FBI was "responsible for the framing of four innocent men" -- Peter J. Limone, Joseph Salvati, Louis Greco, and Henry Tameleo -- by withholding evidence in the 1965 Chelsea, Mass., killing of Edward Deegan, the Boston Globe reported.

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"FBI officials up the line allowed their employees to break laws, violate rules, and ruin lives, interrupted only with the occasional burst of applause," said Gertner, the Globe reported.

Limone, 73, and Salvati, 74, listened to Gertner with their wives and children. Greco and Tameleo have died.

A state judge overturned Limone and Salvati's murder convictions six years ago after the discovery of secret FBI files that showed a prosecution witness who had been vouched for by agents may have been lying to protect the real killer, an FBI informant, the Globe reported.

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