Trial starts today in suit linked to Bulger

After a long legal and emotional battle, the first of 17 federal suits brought against the government by alleged victims of fugitive crime boss James ``Whitey" Bulger goes to trial today.

The family of Quincy resident John McIntyre, who was 32 when he was brutally slain in 1984, is seeking $50 million in the wrongful death suit. Longtime FBI informant Stephen ``The Rifleman" Flemmi has admitted to his murder and has implicated Bulger .

The first witness the McIntyres plan to call to the stand in US District Court in Boston today is Flemmi, who will be testifying publicly for the first time since he began cooperating with the government three years ago.

In a strange twist, the McIntyres must prove what federal prosecutors have asserted as fact in court filings and criminal proceedings held in the same courthouse: that McIntyre was killed because former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. leaked word that McIntyre was cooperating against Bulger.

``They fought so hard for us not to get our day in court, for the truth not to come out," said McIntyre's brother, Christopher. He said it is a victory for him and his mother, Emily, just to have a trial on their suit, no matter what the outcome is.

Ten of the 17 cases that have been brought against the government by alleged Bulger victims or their relatives were dismissed on grounds that they were filed too late. The rest are pending.

Flemmi, who struck a deal with the government that spared him the death penalty, is serving a life sentence after admitting to teaming up with Bulger to kill McIntyre, as well as nine other people. He testified in a deposition last year that Connolly had warned Bulger that McIntyre was cooperating with authorities against him.

McIntyre vanished Nov. 30, 1984, six weeks after telling the FBI and US Customs agents that Bulger and Flemmi were involved in an unsuccessful plot to ship guns to the Irish Republican Army aboard the Valhalla, a Gloucester-based fishing trawler.

In January 2000, his remains were recovered, along with those of two other victims, from an unmarked grave across from Florian Hall in Dorchester.

Former Bulger associate Kevin J. Weeks, who led investigators to the grave after cutting a deal with the government, gave chilling details of McIntyre's slaying while testifying at Connolly's 2004 federal racketeering trial. McIntyre had been lured to a South Boston home, according to Weeks, chained to a chair, grilled for hours, then shot in the head. Weeks is also scheduled to testify in the McIntyre trial.

The suit was filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which does not allow for a jury trial. The case will be decided by US District Judge Reginald C. Lindsay. A jury trial will be held later in the McIntyres' wrongful death allegations against Connolly and four other retired FBI agents.

The McIntyres filed the suit five years ago, but Justice Department lawyers persuaded Lindsay to dismiss it in 2003, arguing that the family had waited too long to file when ``any reasonable person" should have known that FBI negligence or misconduct led to McIntyre's death. Now faced with a trial after an appeals court reinstated the suit two years ago, the Justice Department contends in court documents that ``there is no admissible evidence" that Connolly leaked McIntyre's name to Bulger or Flemmi.

US Representative William D. Delahunt, Democrat of Quincy, called the government's legal tactics in all the civil lawsuits arising from the Bulger scandal ``offensive to victims of crime and their families." Delahunt -- who participated several years ago in congressional hearings that scrutinized the FBI's handling of informants, including Bulger and Flemmi -- said: ``My position is these [civil] cases should have been resolved without litigation. . . . There's no moral justice here."

Delahunt also said he found it astounding that the Justice Department is now arguing in the civil cases that claims of FBI misconduct by Flemmi and Weeks are not reliable while federal prosecutors, who also work for the Justice Department, relied on Weeks's testimony to send three people, including Connolly, to prison. Flemmi is also scheduled to testify in two upcoming criminal trials: one in Florida in which Connolly is accused of murder in helping Bulger and Flemmi to orchestrate a gangland slaying there in 1982 and another trial in Boston, in which former New England Mafia boss Francis Salemme is accused of lying about a gangland slaying.

``It presents the face of the criminal justice system as some sort of `Alice in Wonderland' mess, where up is down and down is up," Delahunt said.

Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department in Washington, declined to comment on the McIntyre case.

During a 1998 interview, Connolly denied informing Bulger that McIntyre was cooperating, telling the Globe: ``I never even heard his name before he was killed. I have no recollection of ever being told that McIntyre was a source for anyone."

Cambridge lawyer E. Peter Mullane, who represents Connolly in the civil case, accused Flemmi of lying. ``It's just another one of those outlandish assertions by Flemmi trying to curry favor with the government by telling them what he thinks they want to hear."

Connolly has never been charged in connection with McIntyre's slaying. A federal jury convicted him of racketeering and of warning Bulger to flee in advance of Bulger's 1995 racketeering indictment. Connolly was cleared of charges that he leaked information that led to three other slayings. He is serving a 10-year sentence in the federal case and is tentatively scheduled to stand trial in Miami in August on the state murder charges.

Bulger remains a fugitive on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. He is accused of 19 murders, including McIntyre's .

Shelley Murphy can be reached at shmurphy@globe.com.