Trial of Whitey Bulger’s former FBI handler postponed in Florida

(Globe file photo/2003)

By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff

A Florida judge granted a request today by former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. to postpone his Miami murder trial, setting a new trial date of June 23.

Connolly, 67, sought a delay of his state murder trial, which had been slated to start in March, after the judge who had been presiding over his case since his 2005 indictment recused herself earlier this month.

During a hearing this morning, Judge Stanford Blake, who was assigned to the case Thursday and is the administrative judge of the criminal division of Florida's 11th Circuit Court in Miami, agreed to postpone the trial for three months.

Connolly, who retired from the FBI in 1990, is accused of plotting with longtime informants James "Whitey'' Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman'' Flemmi to kill Boston financier John B. Callahan in 1982. Prosecutors allege the gangsters orchestrated Callahan's murder in Miami after Connolly warned them that the FBI planned to question Callahan, who could implicate them in another slaying.

Connolly, who is already serving a 10-year prison term for his 2002 federal racketeering conviction, could face life in prison if convicted of the Florida slaying.

Miami-Dade State Attorney Michael Von Zamft estimated today that the trial could take two months.

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