Former State Police chief defends deal struck with hit man

Marice Cohn Band/Associated Press/PoolThomas J. Foley, former head of the Massachusetts State Police, testified before Judge Stanford Blake in Miami. (Marice Cohn Band/Associated Press/Pool)

MIAMI - The former head of the Massachusetts State Police told a Florida jury yesterday that investigators "had sleepless nights" after cutting a deal with a confessed hit man, but insisted it had to be done to solve numerous murders and uncover corruption by former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. and other law enforcement officers.

"A deal like this makes me disgusted," said Thomas J. Foley, referring to the plea bargain that allowed 67-year-old John Martorano to go free last year after serving 12 years for 20 killings. But he said it was necessary to get information on old slayings and expose corruption - including the depth of the FBI's relationship with longtime FBI informants James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi.

"The twisted relationship that John Connolly and the FBI had with Bulger and Flemmi put us in a position where we had to make a decision like that," said Foley, who retired from the State Police four years ago and had spearheaded the Bulger investigation for years.

"So, he got to walk in that door," said defense lawyer Manuel L. Casabielle, pointing to the entrance to the Miami-Dade courtroom that Martorano had entered as a free man to testify on Wednesday and Thursday.

"To prevent what was going on for 20 years in Boston, to stop that, yes, that's something we had to do," said Foley, defending the credibility of the one-time hit man who implicated Connolly in murder.

He said investigators reviewed all of Martorano's statements and found him truthful.

Yesterday marked the end of the first week of testimony in the state trial of Connolly, 68, who is charged with murder and murder conspiracy in the 1982 slaying in Florida of Boston business consultant John B. Callahan.

The once highly decorated agent, who retired from the FBI in 1990 after 22 years, is accused of leaking sensitive information to Bulger and Flemmi that prompted them to recruit Martorano to kill Callahan.

Callahan's bullet-riddled body was found in the trunk of his Cadillac at Miami International Airport on Aug. 2, 1982.

If convicted, Connolly could spend the rest of his life in prison. Jurors have not been told that Connolly, who appears in court each day in a suit coat and tie, is serving a 10-year prison term on federal racketeering charges. He was convicted in 2002 of protecting Bulger and Flemmi from prosecution and warning the gangsters to flee just before their 1995 racketeering indictment.

In his testimony yesterday, Foley offered a sanitized version of how Bulger evaded capture. He told jurors that a State Police team assigned to arrest Flemmi promptly got its man on Jan. 5, 1995, but a team of FBI agents responsible for arresting Bulger that same day was unable to find him.

Seventy-nine-year-old Bulger, now wanted in 19 killings, has been a fugitive since and is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, with a $2 million reward offered for his capture.

In what is expected to be a dramatic courtroom showdown, 74-year-old Flemmi is expected to take the stand against his former FBI handler on Monday. Flemmi pleaded guilty to 10 murders under a deal that sent him to prison for life and spared him the death penalty.

He will be the second killer to take the stand.

Earlier this week, Martorano told jurors he killed Callahan because Bulger and Flemmi told him that Connolly had warned them that Callahan was "going to fold" when questioned by the FBI about the 1981 murder of Tulsa businessman Roger Wheeler, which the gangsters had been involved in.

Martorano said Bulger advised him that Connolly told him, "We're all going to end up in jail for the rest of our lives if he doesn't hold up."

During cross-examination, Foley said authorities investigated all of Martorano's assertions, "looking for loopholes," and didn't find any evidence that he was lying.

However, Foley acknowledged that he had never spoken to Bulger - whose whereabouts remain a mystery - to verify that Martorano's version of what was said between them was true.

When Casabielle asked Foley if Bulger would be called to testify, Foley said, "It would be nice, but I don't think that's going to happen."