As head of the FBI's Boston organized crime squad in the late 1970s and early '80s, John Morris supervised agent John Connolly and oversaw the cultivation of "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen Flemmi as informants. Granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony during 1998 federal court hearings, Morris confirmed scathing allegations of FBI misconduct, admitting that he had alerted Flemmi and Bulger to an investigation targeting bookmakers in 1988 and had asked a federal prosecutor to keep them out of a 1979 indictment for fixing horse races. Morris admitted that he told Connolly about an informant who had implicated Bulger and Flemmi in a murder, fully expecting the information would get back to the mobsters. The informant wound up dead. Morris also accepted $7,000 in payoffs from Bulger. He retired from the FBI in 1995 and moved to Tennessee.

This profile was compiled by the staff of Boston.com based on material from The Boston Globe archives.

As head of the FBI's Boston organized crime squad in the late 1970s and early '80s, John Morris supervised agent John Connolly and oversaw the cultivation of "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen Flemmi as informants. Granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony during 1998 federal court hearings, Morris confirmed scathing allegations of FBI misconduct, admitting that he had alerted Flemmi and Bulger to an investigation targeting bookmakers in 1988 and had asked a federal prosecutor to keep them out of a 1979 indictment for fixing horse races. Morris admitted that he told Connolly about an informant who had implicated Bulger and Flemmi in a murder, fully expecting the information would get back to the mobsters. The informant wound up dead. Morris also accepted $7,000 in payoffs from Bulger. He retired from the FBI in 1995 and moved to Tennessee. This profile was compiled by the staff of Boston.com based on material from The Boston Globe archives.