Howie Carr thread for second half of June, 2013

Howie thread for the second half of June, 2013 starting with his Sunday Herald column, another one related to Whitey Bulger: "Stench from garage finally out"

Sunday column ping

Carr: Stench from garage finally out
Sunday, June 16, 2013 By: Howie Carr

Thirty-three years — that’s how long the state police had to wait to use their Lancaster Street garage surveillance as evidence in court. But it was worth the wait, because it puts the lie to Whitey’s contention that he barely even knew any Mafia types.

The FBI was aware of the garage as early as January 1980. In a routine 209 report, the G-men mentioned that Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi had gotten a hot car out of the garage to use in their alleged murder of Stevie Hughes’ son, a Charlestown bank robber.

But the FBI had zero interest in following up, or even in informing the staties that there was a new organized-crime clubhouse in the West End. The state cops found it on their own a few months later, set up shop and began taking these film-noir photos.

Eventually the state police even planted a bug in the couch in the office, but somebody plopped down heavily on the sofa and crushed the bug.

Here are some of the surveillance photos introduced into evidence this week and who the Whitey henchmen are:

• Fat Vinnie Roberto, a Hill bookie. And you thought Carmen “The Cheeseman” DiNunzio was fat. Fat Vinny is the prime suspect for destroying the bug, and the office couch, too.

• Angelo “Andy” Martorano, the father of Johnny and Jimmy Martorano. Johnny was on the lam at the time in Florida.

• Frank LePere, bigtime drug dealer who used Whitey and Stevie Flemmi for protection. He had met with them in Southie a year earlier and sealed the deal with $25,000 in cash. Stevie, as usual claiming to be the naif, told the feds that “it was at this point that Flemmi became aware that LePere was involved in drug trafficking.”

• Whitey relaxes with LCN associate Phil “Hole in the Head” Waggenheim.

• Frank Salemme Jr., who would later die of AIDS.

• Vinny “the Animal” Ferrara. Now a North End businessman who does not appreciate his former Mob moniker.

• John “Jackie” Salemme, younger brother of then-imprisoned Cadillac Frank Salemme, Stevie’s former partner in the old Roxbury gang.

• Stevie Flemmi with Tony D’Agostino, aka Tony Blu. Blu was one of Winter Hill boss Buddy McLean’s bodyguards the night Buddy was shot to death on Broadway in 1965. Blu was wounded.

• Joe Yerardi, aka “Joey Y,” Newton bookie and loan shark, one of the gang’s younger members. Now 59, he was released from federal prison last July.

• Mafia soldier Nick Giso leaves the garage. Geezer Giso once had a falling-out with his young girlfriend Eva “Liz” McDonough, so he told her he wanted to meet her that evening in a North End nightclub. Giso asked her to wear a large cowboy hat she owned because it made her “sexy.” She dutifully wore the hat, and that night, instead of Giso, two masked gunmen came into the bar, went straight to the woman wearing the cowboy hat, and literally gave her two in the hat. She survived and is still around today.

• Flemmi and owner Kaufman in discussion with former Joe Barboza enforcer Nick Femia, a major suspect in the five Blackfriars slayings of 1978. When Femia joined up with the Hill, Bulger dictated a report to his crooked FBI agent Zip Connolly clearing him of the Blackfriars murders. A few months later, Whitey fired Femia (for among other things, bringing French fries and cocaine to the garage). Whitey then ordered Connolly to file a new report, saying Femia had been involved in the slayings. Femia was shot to death in a botched East Boston holdup in 1983.

• Joe Mongiello of Medford, in classic ’80s Mob-style clothes, chats with Kaufman. Sometime cop, he occasionally drove for Stevie Flemmi and is a friend of Johnny Martorano.

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Today's Herald column followed by Howie tweets

Hey, Whitey, here’s Johnny!
Ex-mobster gets his turn to be the rat

Monday, June 17, 2013 By: Howie Carr

This morning in Courtroom 11 at the federal courthouse, Whitey Bulger and John Martorano will meet face-to-face for the first time in 31 years.

Martorano will take the witness stand as Whitey, the defendant, sits less than 10 feet away from the “friend” he spent years ratting out to the FBI. Martorano’s mission: to sink Whitey with his testimony of all the many murders they committed together.

Here’s how tight Johnny and Whitey were. Johnny’s youngest son is named James, after James J. Bulger Jr. Whitey is Jimmy’s godfather. Young Jimmy’s middle name is Stephen, as in Stephen “the Rifleman” Flemmi, another FBI informant from Winter Hill who will be testifying against Whitey at his federal murder trial sometime next month.

“I loved those guys,” Johnny Martorano has told me.

He doesn’t love them anymore, especially Whitey.

The last time Johnny and Whitey sat down together was in the summer of 1982 in a rented room at the Marriott Hotel at LaGuardia Airport in Queens. Whitey and Stevie “the Rifleman” Flemmi had flown in from Boston and Johnny had come up from Florida, where he was on the lam. And now his “partners” in the Winter Hill Gang were trying to convince Johnny to murder one of his best friends, John Callahan, down in Florida.

Whitey, as always, was doing most of the talking. He pointed out that a small-time hood named Brian Halloran had been talking to the feds, linking Martorano to the 1981 slaying of Roger Wheeler out in Oklahoma, and that they had shut up Halloran — permanently.

Of course, what Whitey didn’t mention was that Halloran had also been connecting Whitey to the murder of Roger Wheeler. Whacking Halloran wasn’t a favor for Martorano, it was an absolute necessity for Whitey himself. But that was how Whitey always operated — mixing in a little truth with a little fiction, to put the story across, whatever the story was that day. Same with Stevie.

“They were honest about a lot of things,” Martorano testified in Miami five years ago, when his testimony sent crooked FBI agent Zip Connolly to prison for 40 years for second-degree murder. “You can’t be dishonest without showing some honesty.”

That afternoon at LaGuardia, as usual, they talked Martorano into it — Callahan was his 20th and final murder victim. Flemmi has pleaded guilty to 10 slayings and taken the Fifth when asked about 10 others. Whitey is charged with 19.

I guarantee you that Johnny Martorano will come off as remorseful on the stand today, because he is. He can’t change the past and he can’t relive his own life. But he has five kids of his own and he knows, as well as any outsider can, the pain that his actions have caused the survivors of his victims.

Since his release from prison in 2007, Martorano has tried to reach out to many of the survivors to express his contrition. The son of one of his victims will be in the courtroom this morning watching the man who drove the getaway car when Whitey and Stevie machine-gunned his father. They’re not exactly friends, but …

Others are less forgiving, such as John Callahan’s widow. After all, her husband did plenty for Martorano. And after murdering him, Martorano had been willing to take Callahan’s body out to sea in his boat, chop up his corpse and feed it to the sharks. He doesn’t shirk from admitting his past; that’s part of the deal he worked out with the feds.

Today, it’ll be up to the prosecutors to point out that when he was arrested in 1995, Martorano was only looking at four to five years for racketeering. He wasn’t charged with any murders. He’s the one who brought them all up, after he found out that Whitey and Stevie had been ratting him out to the FBI all these years.

There is absolutely no question that if Martorano had not stepped up first, Stevie would have ratted him out again, just the way he’d been doing since the ’60s, when he called him a pimp and tried to blame him for murders Stevie himself was plotting.

But in 1997 Martorano got on the train first, and he made a deal that he would only have to testify against Whitey, Stevie, Zip and the late crooked FBI agent, H. Paul Rico.

As he said in “Hitman,” the book I wrote about him: “Since I started helping the government, none of these guys have hurt anybody else, have they?”

It’s true, you know. By Wednesday, it’ll be the turn of Whitey’s lawyer, Jay Carney, to take a run at Johnny on cross examination. So far, nobody’s laid a glove on him. column

Tweets from @HowieCarrShow:
Whitey arrives at 8:43. I handed Carney a good pencil likeness of himself that someone left with me in Rockland Sat. "Is that me or Jim?"

Dickie O'Brien tight w/Martorano. Helped him clean out Joey Y's hideout in FL when the cops grabbed Y in '95. A cell phone brought JM down. Flemmi wanted to meet OB in 94 to discuss his pending grand jury testimony. Martorano drove OB to a safe public place -- the Crackerbarrel. HC columns today in both #nypost and #bostonherald. Jackie B. in the house, again no Billy. No surprise.

O'Brien tries to say something nice about Johnny M, how he saved him from Stevie, but is cut off by objection. O'Brien blamed dying George Kaufman for collecting rent. O'Brien says working for Angiulos vs. Whitey was "like black and white." Angiulos didn't charge rent, just wanted bets, "businesslike." "All Stevie and Whitey cared about was the 'rent.'" O'Brien started out with Bernie McGarry, but he went to prison. His agents were defecting so he decided to go to "The Man."

The Man sent O'Brien to the Angiulos, never lost agents anymore. got to be friendly with Peter Limone, framed for 30 years. Early 70's needed layoff, Winter Hill wanted O'Brien. Said: "Everybody's gotta be with somebody." Carney brings up Johnny, O'Brien resists. Winter HIll said to O'Brien: "You wear the white hat, we wear the black hat." In other words, we handle the muscle. Corrupt Midget a no-show again, but Carney asks O'Brien if he met with "William Bulger." Quickly corrects self. When Bobby O'Connor Southie bookie retired O'Brien absorbed his agents. Now talking about deadbeat lawyer who said he's related to Whitey. Timilty was last name of agent who dealt with deadbeat lawyer who owed 4K and claimed Bulger was his relative. The laywers eventually paid.

Invoking the Hill when collecting: "the best out I had was, would you like to talk to people from Winter Hill? 'No Dick, we'll settle it.'" O'Brien ended up owing Winter Hill $400,000. Carney: You were very uncomfortable with Stevie Flemmi?" O'Brien: "At times." O'Brien knew he'd killed his girlfriend

more tweets

O'Brien's daughter in business with him Tara "didn't appreciate Flemmi's history that she had learned about." Tara was terrified of Stevie. O'Brien felt responsible for Tara's nervous breakdown because O'Brien said go to FBI in Miami 10-12 hours if I don't come back. O'Brien saved from Flemmi "by the good graces of John Martorano." Fed: what color hat did Mr. Bulger wear during his 14 years with Winter HIll? O'Brien: "Black hat."

Showtime! John Martorano is called. JM in business suit and tie. Wyshak handling questioning. 72 years old. Born Cambridge. High school. not married, divorced. Five kids. Social security. here pursuant to plea agreement. showing plea agreement. laying groundwork. fed charges: 10 murders, victims named. Martorano says "correct" after each victim named. last son "James Stephen" [was named] after whitey and stevie. On Flemmi & Bulger: "They were my partners in crime, my best friends, my children's godfathers." "It broke my heart" to learn they're rats."

JM says he provided info against Hill members Howie Winter and Pat Nee (sure to be point of contention in cross.) Testified in FL against Zip Connolly in the John Callahan murder in 1982. Zip pal of Bulgers now doing 40 years. confessed to 8 more murders during debriefing on the 60's when not member of Winter Hill gang. never been charged "never. 8 victims named. Jan. 95, arrested in delray beach FL, charged with horse-race fixing, originally charged in 79. "I was a fugitive." Martorano got $6000 in commissary money from DEA while in prison for "toothbrushes, soap." wouldn't go in witness protection.

Asked for lump sum $20,000 "to get started when I come out of jail." GK films paid $250,000 to date for rights to life. you hope they make a movie. "I'm hopin'." Wyshak: Did you anyone ever pay you to kill people? JM No. Wyshak: Why was book named Hitman." JM: He thought it would sell better. Background: the book is selling better with the name "Hitman." Original title was "Boston Hitman." Too local, we decided. JM (Martorano) split a $110,000 advance with HC (Howie). Describes me as "a local writer for the Herald around here."

Going over early victims, bobby Palladino, John Jackson, Anthony Veranis. Now talking about the three blacks shot on Normandy Street, Herbert Smith. Flemmi said he got a beating from Smith. Smith was working for two Mafia guys when he beat up Flemmi. Went down to Basin Street, spoke with Herbert Smith, he laughed and that was it. Saw three shadows, he was supposed to be there alone, I thought they might have had the same idea I had. So I shot them

Note: more tweets are @HowieCarrShow. Howie says, "Battery fading, will try to switch, otherwise I'm through for the day. "

Tue column ping. No tweets from Howie from the trial today as he's having work done on his hair.

Carr: Martorano’s ‘career’ nothing to be proud of
Tuesday, June 18, 2013 By: Howie Carr

Johnny Martorano seems a little more subdued these days. He’s 72 now, but it’s more than that.

I think it’s the fact that unlike during the earlier Zip Connolly trials, he’s been back in Boston for a while now. He sees his family, they can read the papers, and even though “hit man” is a fearsome job  description, obviously it’s not anything to brag about.

And by the way, Johnny was absolutely correct on the witness stand yesterday. I did name the biography about him “Hitman” — actually, it was one of my neighbors in Florida. And yes, it is named “Hitman” because I thought that title would sell more.

The other reason Martorano may be a little more circumspect is because a number of Johnny’s victims were — and there is no other way to put this —mistakes. I’m talking about people who got shot who just plain didn’t have it coming to them.

First were the three black people on Normandy Street in Roxbury in January 1968. A black guy named Herbert Smith had beaten up Martorano’s then-pal Stevie Flemmi. Stevie forgot to tell Johnny that he’d been the one who was out of line, and that Smith was only following orders from his Mafia employers.

Johnny went down to Basin Street South and confronted Smith. “He laughed about beating Stevie and that was it.”

Prosecutor Fred Wyshak: “What do you mean, that was it?”

“That was when we  decided to shoot him.”

When Johnny met Smith at a card game around  2 a.m., he saw three figures in the car. “He was supposed to be the only guy there, so I figured maybe he was planning to do the same thing to me that I was to him, so when I got in the car, I fired three times.”

He killed Smith, a 17-year-old boy, and a 19-year-old girl who still had a cigarette burning in her hand when the cops arrived.

“I felt terrible. I wanted to shoot myself, but I can’t change it.”

Then there was the  Indian war in 1973. As a favor for the Mafia, the Hill was looking for a guy named Indian Al Angeli (or Notarangeli). Johnny said he got a positive ID and followed a brown Mercedes into Brighton.

Wyshak: “Who was in the car?”

Martorano: “A guy named Michael Milano.”

Wyshak: “He was the wrong guy, fair to say.”

Martorano: “Wrong guy.”

Next they found Angeli riding in a car on Commercial Street in the North End. Once again they opened fire with a machine gun. Angeli jumped out of the car and ran away, but there was a fatality.

“A guy by the name of Plummer.”

This is not to say that Martorano always got the wrong guy. In 1968, he was trying to do a favor for Deke Chandler and the Campbell brothers. They were facing three counts of murder, and there was an eyewitness, one Ronald Hicks. Martorano promised one of the Campbells’ wives that he would help the family out.

Wyshak: “How did you help her family?”

“I shot Hicks.”

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Today's column..be aware his columns are also posted on bostonherald.com and also howiecarrshow.com

Carr: Johnny’s bad, but not the real rat
By Howie Carr, Wednesday, June 19, 2013

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The worst word you can ever use against Johnny Martorano is “rat,” so you can bet that Whitey Bulger’s lawyers will be throwing it up against him again this morning within 30 seconds or so of resuming their cross-examination. They’ll be trying to make him lose his cool. Good luck with that.

Stipulated, I wrote a book with Martorano, and we split the profits. I get along pretty well with him. So does just everybody else I know who knows him, believe it or not. I’m not making excuses for the 20 murders. Neither is he. But let’s consider what a real rat is. There’s an old joke that a gangster can always close a business deal with these magic words: “I’ll kill you.”

The feds have their own magic words: “You’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison.”

Almost always when a wiseguy hears the magic words, the next day he is missing from his “usual haunts,” as they say. The following day, his family vanishes.

The third day, a FOR SALE sign goes up outside their house. It’s priced to move, garish furniture included. There’s no negotiating, or next to none. It’s take it or leave it, and the hood always takes it. Always.

But that’s not what happened with Johnny Martorano. He went crazy when he discovered that Stevie Flemmi and Whitey were informants. He thought up several ways to kill Stevie in the jail, but ultimately he decided to get them back in a better way — by offering them up to the feds.

First the G-men moved him to New Braintree, and he was a font of information, but with no names attached, and only in a “proffer,” which means if they didn’t make a deal, they couldn’t use the evidence against him.

The government of course wanted him to testify against everybody — Howie Winter, Pat Nee, even his own brother Jimmy. He refused. He would only take the stand against the two real rats — Stevie and Whitey. Finally they put him on “the bus” to Otisville, where they threw him in the hole. Remember, at the time, Johnny is sitting there in solitary, not knowing if Stevie is cutting a deal against him, one that maybe uses Whitey for corroboration. If he misplays his hand, he and his friends go to prison forever. The feds figured he’d break, but they needed Johnny at least as much as he needed them.

Finally they agreed to his terms, to testify only against rats Stevie and Whitey, plus the two most crooked FBI agents, Zip Connolly and the now-deceased H. Paul Rico. They threw in a bunch of Southie hoods from the ’80s, whom Johnny didn’t even know, for window-dressing.

Johnny started the ball rolling. Why people like Michael Donahue’s son Tommy can’t figure this out is a mystery. If Johnny hadn’t rolled, Tommy, your father’s murderer is never punished. It’s as simple as that.

Martorano has fulfilled his end of the bargain. This is probably his last day on the witness stand, ever. Today is the last time anyone will ever call Johnny Martorano a rat — to his face, anyway.

Thu column ping. By the way Howie doesn't write for the Globe, but the Globe will be printing him: Herald says today under a new 10 year agreement, the other paper in town (don't worry, Eye'll think of the name, Norma) will be printing the entire press run of the Herald...

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Evidence, dirt burying Whitey Bulger

Thursday, June 20, 2013 By: Howie Carr

The feds are burying Whitey Bulger, shovelful by shovelful, just like his tubby gravedigger Kevin “Two” Weeks used to do with his boss’ 26-year-old female strangling victims. The only difference is, Whitey is being buried alive, smothered by an avalanche of facts and pictures and evidence.

Consider yesterday. The defense finally got Johnny Martorano off the witness stand, but the cops came back and released photos of more of his victims, including two guys who were shot two years apart, on the same street — Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester.

The more gruesome Morrissey Boulevard photo is of Eddie Connors, former Marine, former boxer, owner of two gin mills across the street from each other on Savin Hill Avenue — Bulldogs and Connors Taverns.

He was allegedly shot to death by Whitey and Stevie Flemmi as he spoke to another Winter Hill gang boss in the phone booth at the old Texaco station on Morrissey. He’d apparently been bragging about his role in setting up one Spike O’Toole back in December 1973. Whitey’s charged with that slaying, too.

Talking to strangers about a hit — no better way to rocket to the top of the Hit Parade.

Notice the pay phone receiver above Connors’ lifeless, bloody head. For years afterwards, drivers would stumble into that phone booth, pick up the receiver and notice all the nicks and dents in it. New England Telephone was always a penny-pinching company. Why replace a receiver in working order just because it took a few machine-gun bullets way back when?

Eddie Connors would be 80 if he were alive today.

Second alleged Morrissey Boulevard killing by Whitey: William H. O’Brien, age 33, machine gunned while driving north toward Southie in March 1973.

His mug shot was released yesterday by the Department of Correction, which had him in its custody for several years after he shot a guy named George O’Brien (no relation) to death in one of those barrooms in Southie where the first shot was on the house, and after that you had to use your own bullets.

William O’Brien was on his way to Southie to pick up his daughter on her 10th birthday. She kept looking out the window watching for his car. It was a police car that eventually arrived, to break the news.

The other guy in O’Brien’s car was Ralph DeMasi, another ex-con. He was the one the Hill was after. In 2004, DeMasi wrote a letter from prison to a judge explaining the events of that afternoon on Morrissey Boulevard.

“I thought someone was taking target practice on the road,” he said. “It was my good friend John Martorano.”

Now DeMasi is 77, listed as a government witness. Not a major one, but he is apparently the only survivor of the Morrissey massacres. And he seems to have the proper attitude to be a witness in this trial.

“I expect to see most people involved in this case in hell someday,” he told the judge. “I hope you all get there before me. Don’t worry, the drinks will be on me.”

Another shovelful of dirt on Whitey …

Fri column is below. Also go to @HowieCarrShow at twitter for Howie's up to the minute tweets

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Carr: One-sided gang war spelled doom for ‘Indian Al’
Friday, June 21, 2013 By: Howie Carr

In yesterday’s parade of Whitey Bulger’s victims and survivors, the son of murdered gangster Tom Angeli got only a couple of minutes on the witness stand to talk about the 1974 murder of his gangster father, Al.

He was 17 years old, hanging out, he said, “when someone came and told me to come home, that my mother was looking for me.”

The prosecutor asked if the person who had come for him told him why he had to come home.

“He said my dad had been murdered.”

This was 10 months after his uncle Joe had been murdered. It was a one-sided gang war. His dad had murdered one of Jerry Angiulo’s bookies, and Angiulo sicced his new allies, the Winter Hill Gang, on the Angelis.

The dead bookie was named Pauline Folino. They hogtied him and buried him alive.

“He died the hard way,” said one of the cops.

I mention this only because not everyone who got whacked was “innocent,” you might say. As Johnny Martorano once explained, “A lot of the guys I killed had killed a lot of other guys, and probably would have gone on killing if I hadn’t killed them first.”

After his gang (and a couple of innocent bystanders) was wiped out, Indian Al wanted to come home. He sued for peace. He went to someone he thought would be a mediator, Howie Winter. Boy, did he get a wrong number. Apparently on the run on the West Coast, Indian Al hadn’t heard who’d been hunting him down.

First he came back and had a meeting with Jerry Angiulo. He now called him “Mr. Angiulo.” He gave the underboss $50,000 as a peace offering. He thought the war was over. It would be, once he was dead.

On the last day of his life, Indian Al was up early. He was staying at the Holiday Inn in Peabody. For his last meal, he had clam chowder and shish kebob. With a $1 tip, the tab ran to $8.20. At 5:21, he made the final phone call of his life, to the widow of another member of his gang who’d been murdered by the Hill in Fort Lauderdale.

He was picked up at the Northgate Shopping Center in Revere by Johnny Martorano and another guy. Whitey, as usual, was in the crash car. Indian Al was carrying a Bible, and Johnny became concerned. He’d just seen a Robert Mitchum movie in which Mitchum played a preacher who carried a gun in a hollowed-out Bible.

Johnny shot him immediately, twice. The body was dumped in another car and found in Charlestown. A new FBI agent named Zip Connolly came by and “exchanged information” with the BPD.

A few days later, Indian Al’s widow arrived back in Boston. She paid his tab at the Holiday Inn and called the Boston PD.

“She was interested in her husband’s property. Stated he wore a ring he had been given by his brother Joseph before Joe died ….”

Needless to say, Mrs. Angeli never got her husband’s ring back. The Indian war was over. Whitey had won again.

Sat column. Lots of columns for him this week.

Carr: Rare survivor’s wit still sharp
Saturday, June 22, 2013 By: Howie Carr

Frank Capizzi is a special guy in the Boston underworld. He was shot two or maybe three times by Whitey Bulger, and lived to tell of it — well, he did once the judge granted him immunity earlier this week.

Not only has Capizzi lived to a relatively ripe old age, he now looks like a bleepin’ moonbat, a geezer with a gray ponytail like you’d see this afternoon at the town dump holding a Markey sign.

But up on the witness stand yesterday, he was still the same old Frank Capizzi, retelling the story of the night in 1973 when he almost bought the farm. He was with Al Angeli, and the Hill had a contract on him.

Winter Hill had a brand-new toy — a machine-gun. Johnny Martorano et al. were in love with that machine gun like they’d found it under the Christmas tree, all wrapped by Santa Claus.

So when the boys saw the car on Commercial Street with Indian Al inside, they were locked ’n’ loaded.

“A firing squad hit us,” Capizzi explained yesterday. “About a hundred slugs hit the automobile. ... It seemed like maybe a day and a half, but it was probably like only a couple of minutes.”

Capizzi was with Al, had been ever since that little problem in Vermont a few years before. Whitey’s lawyer, Jay Carney, asked Capizzi, “How did Al make a living?”

“Ask Al,” quipped ponytail boy.

Carney inquired as to whether he knew there were gang wars going on.

Capizzi replied: “The question would be, who didn’t know that?”

Jerry Angiulo wanted Capizzi — bad. There was only room for one loudmouth in the North End — Jerry’s. So he sent Whitey out looking for him.

Whitey caught up with Frank one morning in Winthrop after he’d dropped his kids off at school. Like everybody else in Indian Al’s gang, he drove a Mercedes, which Whitey perforated, in addition to Capizzi’s leg.

Capizzi escaped, then abandoned the bad-luck Benz, and called his wife and told her to report it stolen. Unfortunately, someone nearby noticed him tossing an unregistered revolver into a field after fleeing the Mercedes. As an ex-con, he was  arrested.

A few weeks later, when he went for dinner with the gang, he was still limping from Whitey’s bullets.

Capizzi and another wounded Indian, Sonny Shields, got themselves patched up at the old BCH and then took it on the lam.

Months later, Capizzi decided the coast was clear to return to Winthrop. Three cops quickly showed up at his front door, all friends of Whitey Bulger, including young FBI agent Zip Connolly.

“I looked directly into John Connolly’s Machiavellian eyes and told (him), Mr. Connolly, James Bulger shot me three times!!! ... (FBI agent) Dennis Condon listened attentively, writing it down.”

Too bad they let Capizzi off the witness stand so quickly yesterday. That interview he had with Zip might have made another interesting line of questioning.

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Sun column ping

Carr: The faces of Whitey's world
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Howie Carr

Before the trial started, most of the people in Whitey’s world weren’t much more than memories, or fading mug shots. But now we watch them on the witness stand 30 or 40 years later. Even the ones who are gone, wiped out in a blaze of Winter Hill machine gun fire, return in candid snapshots, previously stored in shoeboxes in attics for decades.

Let’s go straight to this week’s photo collection from the Moakley courthouse.

James Sousa, an old story, got mixed up with the wrong crowd. They couldn’t kill his boss, Tony Ciulla, because he owned horses with gang boss Howie Winter. So after a botched robbery, he had to go, and go he did. Sousa’s family would like his body back, but the two hit men who buried him — Jimmy Sims and Joe  McDonald — won’t be down for breakfast either. His remains are somewhere in Boxford.

Even when he was alone, Spike O’Toole was in bad company. He once shot Jimmy Flemmi, Stevie’s brother, 11 times. The last of the major figures in the old McLaughlin mob, he had his final drink at Bulldogs in December 1973. The coup de grace was delivered by Joe McDonald, who shot him in the head: “He won’t bother us no more.”

Indian Joe Napolitano: He was shot to death by Johnny Martorano in 1973 in Medford Square at the Pewter Pot. A young Herald reporter asked Laurel Sweet, “What’s a Pewter Pot?”

Louis Lapiana: Another mistake. Shot and paralyzed by a Winter Hill hit squad in Brighton in 1973 (the bullet holes are still visible in the wall at the end of Sparhawk Street). The Hill had a fundraiser for him at Chandler’s but never told him why they were raising money for him. Died in 2001.

Al Plummer, age 49 in 1974, a World War II vet. Driving for Indian Al. Cut in two by a blast from the machine gun Johnny Martorano got from Al LaBella who got it from Stevie Flemmi who got it from Tommy Callahan.

Michael Milano, Winthrop High Class of ’60, very proud of his Mercedes, which he died in, another case of mistaken identity.

Charlie Raso, big-time bookie, laundered money for Johnny Martorano when he needed to buy a house for one of his wives.

William O’Brien: another mistake, an ex-con in the wrong place at the wrong time, on Morrissey Boulevard, shot 17 times with the machine gun. In the words of his friend (and real target) Ralph DeMasi: “He died instantly, about a minute after he yelled (expletive).”

The Milton High Class of ’58 prom. In the middle, Jimmy Martorano. (Not an exhibit, given to me in Osterville last week.)

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Back to me (raccoonradio): What's a Pewter Pot? I don't know if they're still around and I never went into one but I think there was one on Endicott St in Danvers next to Liberty Tree Mall, maybe one next to a rotary in Revere. Here is a pic I found online of one in Lexington:

And here is something else I saw:
Thinking About Pewter Pot

>>For a chain, the Pewter Pot resonated with personality. With waitresses dressed in Revolution era dresses, colonial theme wallpaper, post and beam ceilings and the best muffins and New England clam chowder on earth, the Pewter Pot felt like a "townie place" for the George Washington set. I loved the Arlington, Lexington and Burlington locations. The Franklin burgers were phenomenal! When graduating journalism school with seemingly no future at all, I inquired about a job in the Pewter Pot management trainee program. Some slick, aggressive guy with a pencil-thin mustache told me that working at the Pewter Pot was my future. He stated the usual pep rally stuff like it's hard work and you'll struggle at times, but, ultimately, that I would love working there 65 hours a week at an anemic salary.

>> It was then and there that I decided to stick with journalism and just be a customer at the Pewter Pot. I soon secured a job at a local newspaper -- not only editing the paper at 10K a year with no benefits, but also delivering it in my Ford Escort to the local stores. Better career days eventually evolved, but sometimes I wonder what life would have been like working at the Pewter Pot. Ultimately, I often came to the conclusion that it was a nice to place to visit, but not to live there!

Wed column ping. btw in about a week I'll be off to Pittsburgh and part of Ohio (convention, vacation) but between netbook and maybe FedExOffice I'll try keep everyone up on Howie columns, etc., even if it's just a link to the article itself. Imagine my surprise about 2 yrs ago when I awoke in a motel nr Pitt. Airport to find on Howie Carr Show's facebook, "Now that Whitey Bulger's been caught..." WHAT?!?!

I wound up hearing parts of the show that day via podcast (and I think I still have those podcasts from the day on my netbook..)

From Facebook archive June 2011
>>WRKO shared a link.
June 23, 2011
Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger was captured near Los Angeles after spending the last 16 years on the run during an epic manhunt. Be sure to tune in to AM 680 WRKO all day long as Tom and Todd, Michele Mcphee and of course The Howie Carr Show react to this huge news! Visit http://www.wrko.com/ for more.

Carr: The widow who took on Whitey Bulger
Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Howie Carr My heroine of the day is Margaret King, the 68-year-old widow of former Mullen gangster Tommy King.

Whitey Bulger had her husband murdered in 1975, and buried his body under the Neponset River bridge. So she went looking for Whitey at Triple O’s, his bucket of blood in the Lower End.

“I talked to Mr. Bulger, down at Triple O’s,” she was saying yesterday in Courtroom 11. “He was getting into a car.”

The prosecutor asked her, Why would she go to Whitey?

“They worked together.”

She asked Whitey, Where is my husband?

“He said, ‘Probably in Canada, robbing banks, which is what he wanted to do.’ ”

The prosecutor asked, “Did you believe him?”

"No."

And how exactly did Whitey, who, as his pal Stevie Flemmi would say, never had very good relationships with women, take this confrontation with a … broad?

“I’m sure he was a little agitated that I would even bother him, because I was quite upset.”

Tommy King’s fatal mistake was being tougher than Whitey Bulger. Thus, he had to go. Trying to convince his Winter Hill partners to go along with eliminating King, Whitey came up with one bogus reason after another for clipping King. His final one was that King had gone “kill crazy.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Witnesses have said Whitey was determined to get rid of the “kill-crazy” King, by shooting him and burying him under the Neponset River bridge. Part two of the plan was to murder King’s pal Francis Xavier “Buddy” Leonard, then leave Leonard’s corpse in King’s car. That way, it looked like King killed his pal and screwed.

Of course Margaret King didn’t believe it.

Fred Wyshak, the prosecutor, asked her: “Did you ever see your husband again?”

“No.”

King was the Mullens’ toughest guy. Back in the early 1960s, he and a couple of other Southie guys robbed a pharmacy in Newton. Everyone escaped except Tommy King. The Newton cops wanted the other guys, so from his jail cell King offered to fight the toughest cop. If he lost, he’d give up the other Southie guys. If he beat the toughest cop, they had to let him go.

Tommy King won. The cops freed him. It was a different time.

Years later, in 1975, King was called in on a hit. He was told they needed to kill Alan “Suitcase” Fidler, a bit player in Billy Bulger’s little book, “While the Music Lasts.” King didn’t trust Whitey, so he wore a bulletproof vest. Didn’t do him any good, because Johnny Martorano shot him in the head.

“I felt terrible,” Johnny said.

But not as terrible as Tommy King felt.

column

Fri column ping

Not Mr White's Anymore by Howie Carr 6/28/13

Whitey Bulger had a flashback to 1985 yesterday. He thought he was still running the Boston FBI office as he sneered at the crooked weakling  G-man John Morris that  he’d always owned.

“You’re a (bleepin’) liar,” Whitey hissed.
In the old days, Morris would have soiled his drawers. He once told a reporter about Whitey, “You have  no idea how dangerous  he is.”

In 1995, “Mr. White” called Morris at the FBI Academy and gave him a tongue-lashing so severe that Morris keeled over with a heart attack.

But that was then, and this is now. After this  F-bomb, prosecutor Brian Kelly stood up and pointed a finger at Whitey as he  angrily addressed the judge:

“I know he’s spent his whole life intimidating people, including 15-year-olds in Southie, but he can keep his little remarks to himself.”

Little remarks! J.W. Carney bowed his head in mock reproach and said he’d have a discussion with his client.

Whitey and Stevie Flemmi derisively called Morris “Vino” because of his taste for the grape.

Yesterday, 67-year-old Morris told the court that he’s “employed part time, as a wine consultant, a wine educator.” Boy, did they own Vino.
At least three times yesterday, he referred to Zip Connolly as his “best friend.” Now Vino lives in a  retirement community in Florida and so does Zip — in a gated community ... prison.

All the other bent FBI agents were Boston boys — Zip, Paul Rico, Dennis Condon. Morris was from somewhere out in the heartland. He thought everything was on the level.

No wonder Whitey figured he could still push him around all these years  later.

First they gave Vino a case of wine. Then they got him drunk at the Colonnade in a room where he was playing Whitey and Stevie Mafia tapes from the Dog House. Vino was so loaded he forgot to take the tape back. Whitey had to drive him home. After that, they owned him. He’d gone native.

And then the married Vino wanted to take his FBI secretary/girlfriend on a junket to Glencoe, Ga. He went to Zip and asked him if Whitey and Stevie would give him a grand.

Vino recalled how Zip had told him: “ ‘These guys really like you. If there’s anything you ever want or need, just ask.’ And I did ... I knew that I was clearly compromised.” And “Mr. White” owned him all these years. Until yesterday, when Brian Kelly put Whitey in his 83-year-old place.

column

Howie Sunday ping

Gas tax on cruise control
Sunday, June 30, 2013 By: Howie Carr

The Legislature did an amazing thing this week. It overwhelmingly decided to never, ever vote to raise gas taxes again.

That doesn’t mean gas taxes aren’t going to keep going up and up and up. It just means the General Court will never have to go on record as raising them. Because from now on the state gas taxes are going to increase ... automatically!

Who says the hackerama at the State House is incapable of innovations? When new ways are needed to pick the taxpayers’ pockets, Beacon Hill will invent them.

Instead of having actual roll-call votes on whether to increase the gas tax — votes that might be used against the hacks in the next election — from now on they’re going to use a formula based on the Consumer Price Index.

You know, the same CPI that overestimates inflation so much that even Barack Obama has been complaining about it.

The hacks at the State House used to vote on their own pay raises, which proved to be an extremely hazardous roll call. Afterwards, in the next election, a few of the feebler solons would always be culled from the herd. So the hacks now determine their inevitable pay raises with this marvelous new CPI dodge, which has proven so successful that they’ve decided to use it on gas taxes.

But just for old times’ sake, they decided to raise the gas tax one final time — by 3 cents per gallon.

Maybe you didn’t hear about this new scheme, I mean plan, to never vote on raising gas taxes again. It got buried in the larger story about the latest tax increase, which is somewhere between $500 million and $1.2 billion, but hey, who’s counting, it’s only taxpayers’ money.

The tax increase is to be used for transportation funding, well, some of it is, at least a third maybe. But as the years go by, they’re hoping to use more of it for actual things like roads. You can trust them, after all, they’re not like the others.

But right now, you see, Deval et al. need the money for their beloved programs, like $270 million in Mass Health benefits for illegal aliens and God only knows how much more for their free in-state college tuitions and their Section 8 Tsarnaev housing.

See, after providing a proper welcome to all the newcomers, the state is short — oh wait, actually, the actual revenue figures for the fiscal year that ends tonight are $600 million above estimates.

Another hike: an extra buck for a pack of smokes — but you’ll never even miss it, just like you never noticed that 2 percent cut in your pay Jan. 1 for Social Security, right?

Oddly, the Legislature did not begin debating the “t” word until after the U.S. Senate special election was over. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

About the only word in the debate that had any real meaning was “fix,” in its drug definition. The hackerama needed another fix, because they’re junkies, addicted to tax dollars.

Nobody cares anymore, apparently. As long as they don’t have to actually work, the hacks are content to bankrupt the state, while everyone with a real job is figuring out a way to flee, permanently. Only a handful of Republicans are left to complain.

Rep. Jim Lyons of Andover pointed out that MBTA painters make $79,000 a year, while painters in “regular government” get $46,000. Wonder how much they make in the Dreaded Private Sector.

Rep. Ryan Fattman of Sutton mentioned the greatest accomplishment of the Patrick administration: “We have had more dead people receiving EBT benefits in a decade than jobs have been created.”

And Sen. Bruce Tarr noted how the “reforms” invariably work out with the state’s bloated bureaucracies: “You didn’t save the money you said you would, so let’s give you some more money.”

But look on the bright side. You won’t have to read any more headlines about the gas tax going up. Because it’ll just be going up automatically.

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