Flemmi: Connolly tip led to Callahan's murder

Stephen Flemmi on the stand yesterday at the trial of John J. Connolly Jr. (AP File Photo)

By Shelly Murphy, Globe Staff

MIAMI -- Longtime FBI informant Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi told a Florida jury today that his former handler, retired FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr., warned him and his sidekick, James "Whitey" Bulger, that a Boston business consultant who could implicate them in murder "wouldn't hold up" if questioned by the FBI.

That tip was enough to seal the fate of the businessman, John B. Callahan, according to Flemmi.

Within a week, Bulger summoned hitman John Martorano to a meeting at a New York City hotel and told him that he had to kill his good friend, Callahan, Flemmi said.

"He told him, Johnny, this information came from John Connolly," said Flemmi, adding that he and Bulger wanted Martorano to know that the tip was good. Bulger, who did all the talking during the meeting, according to Flemmi, warned the hitman, "You gotta make a decision here, You going to kill this guy or are you going to take the chance of going to prison for the rest of your life?"

Later, Flemmi underwent an aggressive cross-examination by Manuel L. Casabielle, Connolly's lawyer, who sought to raise questions about Flemmi's credibility.

Martorano testified last week that he reluctantly agreed to kill Callahan because he knew his friend could implicate him, Bulger, and Flemmi in the 1981 slaying of a Tulsa businessman. On Aug. 2, 1982, police found the 45-year-old Callahan's bullet-riddled body in the trunk of his Cadillac at Miami International Airport.

In a plot to blame Cuban drug dealers for the murder, Flemmi testified that Connolly filed internal FBI reports filled with fictitious information provided by Bulger and Flemmi that suggested Callahan had a falling out with some dangerous Cuban associates shortly before his slaying.

Today is Flemmi's second day on the stand in the trial of Connolly, 68, who retired from the FBI in 1990 after 22 years and is now charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the slaying of Callahan. He's accused of leaking sensitive information that prompted Bulger and Flemmi to orchestrate the murder.

During his testimony, Flemmi described Connolly as a corrupt agent who leaked information to him and Bulger from the inception of their informant relationship in 1975 and pocketed $235,000 in payoffs and kickbacks from them.

Meanwhile, Flemmi said, he and Bulger got away with murders, ran a widespread gambling operation throughout greater Boston, and controlled all drug trafficking in South Boston.

"James Bulger, he organized all the drug dealers in South Boston,'' said Flemmi, adding that the dealers either paid Bulger "based on the amount of drugs they were selling" or paid a flat "street tax.''

At one point in the 1980s, Flemmi said, Bulger forced local dealers to use Charlestown drug kingpin Joseph Murray as their supplier, then forced Murray to pay him a share of his profits as well.

The 74-year-old Flemmi arrived in the chilly courtroom today wearing a dark green windbreaker over his prison-issued short-sleeved khaki shirt and pants. His demeanor changed abruptly from rather mild-mannered and polite to antagonistic and confrontational during cross-examination.

Flemmi, who pleaded guilty to 10 murders under a deal that spared him the death penalty and moved him to a witness security prison unit reserved for cooperators, said he decided to cooperate in 2003 because "everybody else was cooperating. ... Everyone was looking out for themselves.''

The aging gangster said he also wanted to get out of the state prison at Walpole, where he was being held in "the hole,'' meaning solitary confinement with little human contact. The food was bad and his weight had dropped from 160 pounds to 135 pounds as his health deteriorated, Flemmi said.

He acknowledged that his health improved tremendously once he began cooperating and was moved to a better, undisclosed facility.

Flemmi said the government has never suggested that his sentence could be reduced and he could be released from prison someday. But, he added, "Where there's life, there's a possibility. Who knows what could happen someday?''

Though Flemmi has only pled guilty to the 10 slayings he committed from 1974 to 1985, he was grilled today about the revelation that he had admitted being involved -- either directly or as a cleanup guy -- in another 10 that happened in the 1960s.

"Let's talk briefly about murder,'' said Casabielle, going through each of the 10 slayings from the 1960s, and asking Flemmi if he killed the victims or merely "cleaned up.''

"We have a different version of cleanup,'' said Flemmi, making a distinction between burning the back room of a restaurant to destroy the bloody room where his brother killed a man, and driving a car while someone else was moving a body.

"Is that list all inclusive?" Casabielle asked Flemmi after running through a litany of murders. "I don't know. Are you finished?" Flemmi said.

"Well, you don't know the names of all the victims?" thundered Casabielle, drawing an objection from the prosecution.

Jurors have not been told that Connolly was convicted in 2002 on federal racketeering charges in Boston for protecting Bulger and Flemmi from prosecution and warning them to flee just before the gangsters were indicted on racketeering charges in January 1995. Bulger, 79, remains a fugitive on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, with a $2 million reward being offered for his capture.

But in court today, Flemmi recounted being warned by longtime Bulger deputy Kevin Weeks around Christmas that Connolly had warned them that they would be indicted soon.

"I procrastinated,'' said Flemmi, when grilled about why he didn't leave town immediately. He admitted that he already made plans for life as a fugitive.

"I had an apartment in Montreal,'' Flemmi said. "I was packed. I had money, and I was leaving.''

But Flemmi waited just a little too long and was arrested Jan. 5, 1995, and has been in custody ever since.

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