Thursday, 4:30 PM
Dukakis testifies in Limone trial
By Shelley Murphy
Globe Staff
Former Governor Michael S. Dukakis testified Wednesday that he carefully considered every inmate’s request for clemency in the 1980s, even reviewing case files at home at night before deciding whether they should be set free.
But Dukakis said he only recalled one instance when the state’s top federal prosecutor weighed in on a clemency petition — in 1983, when then US Attorney William F. Weld urged him to reject Peter J. Limone’s bid for freedom.
Considering how ‘‘unusual’’ it was to get such a letter, Dukakis said he gave ‘‘substantial’’ weight to Weld’s warning that Limone would ‘‘assume charge of the day-to-day operations of organized crime in this area’’ if released.
The governor said he urged the governor’s council not to commute the life sentences of Limone and his codefendant, Louis Greco, in the 1980s, but obviously would have felt differently if he knew the men had been wrongfully convicted of the 1965 gangland slaying of petty thief Edward ‘‘Teddy’’ Deegan in Chelsea.
Dukakis, who served as governor from 1975 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1990, was called to the stand in a civil trial, where Limone, Joseph Salvati, and the families of Greco and Henry Tameleo, who are both dead, are seeking more than $100 million from the government for falsely imprisoning the men.
Later, on his way out of the courthouse, Dukakis said it was ‘‘disgraceful’’ that two Italian-American members of the parole board were investigated by the FBI for alleged ties to organized crime after they voted to commute Limone’s sentence in 1983.
‘‘Now that we know what was going on in the (FBI) office, we were all deceived,’’ said Dukakis, referring to the racketeering conviction of former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. for his handling of longtime informants James ‘‘Whitey’’ Bulger and Stephen ‘‘The Rifleman’’ Flemmi, and to the murder indictment of former FBI agent H. Paul Rico, who died in jail while awaiting trial. ‘‘In fact, the bureau itself was betrayed.’’
Limone and Salvati spent more than 30 years in prison before they were exonerated five years ago after the revelation that secret FBI reports, never turned over at their 1968 trial, indicated they had been framed by the government’s key witness, Mafia hitman Joseph ‘‘The Animal’’ Barboza. Tameleo and Greco died in prison.
Dukakis acknowledged he knew nothing about allegations that then-FBI agent Dennis Condon was aware Barboza was lying and yet vouched for his credibility during the trial.
But on the stand, Dukakis defended the integrity of Condon, who served as public safety commissioner during his administration. He later told reporters, ‘‘There really wasn’t a better public servant walking the earth, in my opinion.’’
Barboza testified during the 1968 trial that Limone, who allegedly had ties to organized crime, paid him $7,500 to kill Deegan and that Tameleo, the mob’s reputed consigliere, sanctioned the hit. Barboza, who was given leniency for his cooperation, claimed Salvati and Greco participated in the slaying.
In earlier testimony Wednesday, former defense attorney F. Lee Bailey testified that Barboza confided to him two years after the convictions that Rico was part of a plot to frame the four men.
Bailey said Barboza claimed that Rico told him the FBI wanted to prosecute ‘‘high-profile’’ organized crime figures and suggested he implicate Tameleo and Limone in Deegan’s slaying.
‘‘He said he was told (by Rico) to give us two and you can name two,’’ said Bailey, adding that Barboza added Salvati and Greco because he disliked them.
Bailey said Barboza admitted protecting one of the true killers, his close friend Vincent ‘‘Jimmy’’ Flemmi, who was also an FBI informant. Flemmi, who died in prison in 1979, was the brother of longtime FBI informant, Stephen Flemmi.
Bailey said he agreed to represent Barboza in his recantation, but only after the mobster said he would take a lie detector test. But Bailey said the test was never given.
Barboza’s possible recantation became public in 1970 when he signed an affidavit saying portions of his trial testimony were false. But later Barboza told federal prosecutors he was only pretending to recant as part of a plot to extort money from local Mafia leaders, according to court records.
Barboza was gunned down by another mobster in 1976 in San Francisco.
Rico died in January 2004, in jail, awaiting trial on charges that he helped Bulger and Stephen Flemmi orchestrate the 1981 slaying of Tulsa businessman Roger Wheeler.
