Thursday, 4:30 PM
Government found liable for murder in FBI case involving Bulger
By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff
A federal judge has found that the government was responsible for the death of a Quincy fisherman and ordered a payment of more than $3 million to the family of John McIntyre, who was murdered in 1984 by longtime FBI informants James "Whitey'' Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman'' Flemmi.
U.S. District Judge Reginald Lindsay, who held an 18-day trial in June, ruled that the government is liable because former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. warned Bulger and Flemmi that McIntyre was cooperating against them, knowing it would cause his murder.
In his 110-page ruling, Lindsay wrote that the FBI “stuck its head in the sand when it came to the criminal activities of Bulger and Flemmi,” ignoring overwhelming evidence of their crimes while continuing to use them as informants against local Mafia leaders.
The judge concluded that Connolly was motivated by greed, his friendship with Bulger and Flemmi, and a desire to accomplish the FBI's top priority of taking down the Mafia.
The ruling comes in the first of a series of Bulger-related suits to make it to trial. Ten suits were dismissed, mostly on the grounds that the families filed them too late, and six more are awaiting trial.
