He tipped wrong people off, court told
A disbarred lawyer testified yesterday that he warned an FBI agent and a Boston police detective in 1980 that a bookmaker was poised to drop a dime on a drug-dealing ring involving corrupt police officers and South Boston crime boss James “Whitey’’ Bulger.
The bookmaker, Louis Litif, was shot to death one to four weeks later, on April 12, 1980, according to the former lawyer, Kevin Curry of Winchester.
“I began to figure out in my mind that I might very well have tipped the wrong people off,’’ said Curry, testifying in a federal trial over wrongful death suits filed against the government by Litif’s family and the families of two women who Bulger allegedly killed. Curry first reported the information to investigators a decade ago.
Curry testified that he was representing a drug dealer when Litif offered to be a witness in the case. He said Litif professed to be taking drugs out of Boston Police Headquarters, with the help of corrupt officers, and giving them to a South Boston operation controlled by Bulger. At the time, Litif was awaiting trial on a murder charge and was looking to cut a deal, he said.
Curry said he was riding around the city in a cruiser when he told FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. and Boston police Detective Edward Walsh about Litif’s plan to cooperate.
At the time, Curry said, he thought Connolly was a state trooper and did not know that Connolly was the handler for Bulger, a long-time FBI informant.
The Litifs allege that Bulger killed Litif, who was also an FBI informant, after Connolly tipped him about the cooperation. No one has been charged with Litif’s slaying.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Walsh, who retired from the force 22 years ago as a deputy superintendent, called Curry a liar and “a real out-and-out screwball.’’
“It never happened,’’ said Walsh, insisting that Curry never gave him information about Litif. He also denied Curry’s assertion that he drove around the city with Walsh in his cruiser about once a month for about five years. “I never liked him, and I would never let him in my car,’’ Walsh said.
Curry, who had been a lawyer for 41 years, was disbarred by the state Supreme Judicial Court last year for crossing ethical boundaries during the Demoulas supermarket family feud in the 1990s.
The Litifs and the families of 26-year-old Debra Davis, who was killed in 1981, and Deborah Hussey, 26, who was killed in 1985, contend that the FBI is responsible for the slayings because agents knew Bulger and his sidekick, Stephen “The Rifleman’’ Flemmi, were killers, but protected them from prosecution because they were informants.
Justice Department lawyers argue that the FBI was not obligated to control the pair.
Connolly, who was already serving 10 years for a 2002 racketeering conviction, was sentenced to another 40 years in January for helping Bulger and Flemmi orchestrate a 1982 gangland slaying in Florida. Bulger, who is wanted in 19 murders, has been a fugitive since 1995. 