State pays $500k to estate in wrongful conviction case

Edward Greco, accused in a 1965 gangland murder, died in prison in 1995.

The estate of one of four men who a federal judge said were framed by the FBI for a notorious 1965 gangland murder has received $500,000 from the state for the wrongful conviction.

But the lawyer for the late Louis Greco's estate said it will return the settlement if it wins an appeal by the federal government challenging a US district court judge's award of $101.7 million to the two surviving former prisoners and the estates of two who died in prison before being exonerated.

"If we prevail in the federal case, which is years down the road, we'll reimburse the Commonwealth $500,000," John Cavicchi, who represents Greco's former wife, Roberta Werner of Boynton Beach, Fla., the executrix of his estate, said yesterday. "Roberta wanted the money now. She's elderly."

She received the payment late last month, he said. She could not be reached for comment.

Nothing in the 2004 state law that provides a maximum of $500,000 for erroneous convictions prevents individuals from seeking compensation even if they have been awarded damages in federal court, according to a spokeswoman for Attorney General Martha Coakley, who represents the state in compensation claims. But Coakley and Werner negotiated an agreement for the estate to return the money if it ultimately gets at least that much in the federal case.

In a landmark ruling a year ago, District Court Judge Nancy Gertner ordered the government to pay $28 million to the estate of Greco, who died in prison in 1995 at age 78, having served 28 years. She awarded $73.7 million to the other plaintiffs.

Gertner said the FBI deliberately withheld evidence that Greco, Peter J. Limone, Joseph Salvati, and Henry Tameleo were innocent of the Chelsea killing of Edward "Teddy" Deegan on March 12, 1965. She said the bureau helped cover up the injustice for decades as the men grew old behind bars and Greco and Tameleo died.

Only Greco's estate has sought state compensation, Coakley's office said. Massachusetts is among about two dozen states with laws that compensate the wrongly convicted, using formulas ranging from lump sums to calculations of lost wages.

Since Massachusetts passed its statute, 25 people have filed for compensation with the state attorney general's office, said Jill Butterworth, a Coakley spokeswoman. Between $5.2 million and $5.7 million has been distributed to 12 former prisoners. Eleven cases are pending. One case was dismissed by a Plymouth superior court judge and another resulted in a mistrial, with a retrial scheduled for next year.

The $500,000 settlement marks the first time the state has provided compensation even though the wrongfully convicted person was deceased, Butterworth said.

Howard Friedman, a Boston civil rights lawyer who has represented three former inmates who were reimbursed for wrongful convictions, said the law is silent on whether estates can get compensation.

"I'm glad to see the attorney general is interpreting it that way," said Friedman, who also represents Greco's son, Edward, one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit.

Louis Greco and two of the other defendants convicted in Suffolk Superior Court on July 31, 1968, were sentenced to die in the electric chair. Their sentences were later reduced to life in prison after Massachusetts abolished the death penalty.

The claim for state compensation said lie detector tests Greco took in 1967, 1978, and 1983 showed that he was not involved in Deegan's killing.

The discovery of secret FBI files that were never turned over during the men's criminal trial prompted a state judge seven years ago to overturn the murder convictions of Limone, who was immediately freed from prison, and Salvati, who was paroled in 1997.

The documents showed the FBI knew that the key witness in the case, notorious hit man Joseph "The Animal" Barboza, may have falsely implicated the four men while protecting one of Deegan's true killers, Vincent "Jimmy" Flemmi, who was an FBI informant.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.