Trial Diary: Moving to Miami

September 18, 2008 03:45 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Dick Lehr, Globe Correspondent

MIAMI – The Boston guys – three investigators and a federal prosecutor – have moved into efficiency apartments along the shores of Miami Beach, settling in for the long haul that is expected in the prosecution of former FBI agent John Connolly on murder charges.

But that doesn’t mean the foursome has time for a round of golf or any pleasures of the sea. “We’ve been going 24/7,’’ says Fred Wyshak, the Boston federal prosecutor working with Dade County prosecutors trying Connolly in the 1982 murder of businessman John Callahan.

“We haven’t had a minute to get our toes in the sand or in the water,’’ Wyshak says.

With Wyshak are Dan Doherty, a supervisor with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Steve Johnson, a Detective-Lieutenant in the Massachusetts State Police’s organized crime section, and Jim Marra, a special agent in the Department of Justice’s inspector general’s office. The four spend their days in court and their nights either prepping witnesses or poring over documents and case files.

To get here from Boston, they rented a small truck and car, loaded the vehicles with case files and suitcases and hit the road. The trip took three days, and they arrived on the weekend before jury selection began on Monday, Sept. 8.

Wyshak, Doherty, and Johnson are practically growing old together, having worked as a team for a long time now – back to the early 1990s when they first began investigating the Whitey Bulger gang, and later on, Connolly, the gang’s corrupt FBI protector.

Back then, none of them ever imagined the case would explode the way it did, exposing the worst informant scandal in FBI history, and today the trio can tick off the long-running saga’s accomplishments, from cleaning up several dozen unsolved murders, to seizing an arsenal of Bulger gang weaponry, to exposing corruption in local, state and federal law enforcement. “The corruption was mindboggling,’’ one said.

During the trial, Marra sits along side Wyshak at the prosecution’s table in the courtroom’s well, while Doherty and Johnson have their back, seated in the first row. Doherty has light hair and a goatee, and he’s often jotting notes. Johnson, prematurely gray, usually sits erect, listening intently to testimony. During breaks, the four huddle with their local counterparts to discuss strategy and the case’s progress.

They usually work into the night and eat supper together. “Danny’s the cook,’’ Wyshak says. “He cooked a nice shrimp and pasta dinner the other night.’’ To be clear, they said, they don’t share an apartment but each has his own one-bedroom unit. No way did they want a four-bedroom apartment. Enough is enough; by day’s end, joked one, “We can’t stand each other.’’

Dick Lehr is the co-author of the national bestseller “Black Mass: The True Story of the Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob.’’ He wrote for the Boston Globe from 1985 to 2003.