OSTON, May 30 — There is the family of a Tulsa high-tech multimillionaire who was executed gangland-style as he left his country club after a round of golf. Also the mothers of two young women whose bodies were found in shallow sandy graves along the outer reaches of Boston harbor. Not to mention the widow of a small-time mobster missing for many years.
All of them say the Boston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was complicit in the killings of their relatives or helped cover them up, and all of them are suing the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice.
The lawsuits are only one sign that the conviction on Tuesday of a retired F.B.I. agent, John J. Connolly Jr., on charges that he collaborated with Boston's leading gangsters will not end the scrutiny of how the Boston office and the bureau itself dealt with lawbreakers and broke the law themselves.
The House Government Reform Committee has been investigating accusations that for decades Boston F.B.I. agents provided tips to organized crime leaders to help them eliminate witnesses against them, sent innocent men to prison for life, lied to other law enforcement agencies and covered up crimes committed by their informers.
A major goal of the investigation is to find out how much F.B.I. headquarters in Washington knew about the misconduct in its Boston field office. Investigators this month released what they called a "smoking gun" memo from 1965 that showed that J. Edgar Hoover was informed that four innocent men had been sent to prison for life for a murder the F.B.I. knew was committed by one of its Boston informers.
In addition, there was testimony at the trial that other agents besides Mr. Connolly took bribes and helped a powerful organized crime group in Boston headed by James Bulger, who was known as Whitey and was supposedly an F.B.I. informer. Michael Sullivan, the United States attorney here, said his office was investigating those accusations. Some officials now say they also believe that several heads of the Boston F.B.I. office covered up for agents' misconduct.
"What happened in Boston is not just a John Connolly, rogue street agent problem," said Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has been participating in the investigation by the Government Reform Committee.
"What we have revealed here is an institution in dire need of reform, with no accountability, no transparency and a total lack of controls," said Mr. Delahunt, a local district attorney for more than 20 years.
A Congressional investigator, speaking on condition his name not be used, said the Boston case, like the disclosures about the bureau's failure to investigate terrorist activities before Sept. 11, revealed "a culture of concealment, where the F.B.I. got itself into a protective mentality and cared less about justice being done than about protecting itself when agents made mistakes."
The lawsuits have put the Justice Department in a peculiar situation, said Albert Cullen Jr., a lawyer representing the widow of Brian Halloran, a small-time drug dealer. Mr. Halloran was killed by Mr. Bulger in 1982 after Mr. Connolly tipped him off that Mr. Halloran was providing the F.B.I. with information about a killing Mr. Bulger had arranged, according to testimony at Mr. Connolly's trial.
While Justice Department's criminal division prosecuted Mr. Connolly, its civil division, which handles lawsuits against the department, has had to defend his actions.
One danger for the F.B.I. in these lawsuits, with 6 filed so far and perhaps 10 more to come soon, is that the standard of proof is lower than in the criminal trial in which Mr. Connolly was acquitted of the most serious charges against him, including complicity in murder. Also, there could be further damaging revelations as the lawsuits move into the discovery phase.
One lawyer, Frank Libby, has found the government's response to his lawsuit paradoxical. Mr. Libby represents the estate of Roger Wheeler, the chairman of the Telex Corporation who was killed in 1981 on orders from Mr. Bulger after he learned the gang was skimming money from one of his businesses, according to testimony at Mr. Connolly's trial.
The Boston F.B.I. office did not act on its knowledge of Mr. Bulger's role in the killing, or tell the Tulsa police. Instead, Mr. Connolly tipped off the organized crime boss that Mr. Halloran had informed on him, according to testimony at the trial. Mr. Bulger shot him, one former Bulger associate testified.
Mr. Libby said the Justice Department notified him on Tuesday — the same day Mr. Connolly was convicted — that it was moving to dismiss the Wheeler family's lawsuit because the statute of limitations had expired. "There is some irony in the government saying the Wheeler family should have known, from half a continent away, 20 years ago, that government agents were committing murder," said Mr. Libby.
The two women whose bodies were found were girlfriends of Stephen Flemmi, Mr. Bulger's deputy. Their bodies were found after another Bulger associate told the authorities that Mr. Flemmi had killed them.
Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said it would not comment on continuing litigation.
Some officials have also been critical of Charles Prouty, the special agent in charge of the Boston bureau, who in 1997 was sent to Boston as part of a team of F.B.I. and Justice Department investigators when evidence about the troubles came out in a hearing by United States District Judge Mark L. Wolf.
Mr. Prouty and the team quickly produced a report that found no wrongdoing within the five-year statute of limitations. But a hearing by Judge Wolf the next year uncovered much of the misconduct that was cited in Mr. Connolly's trial.
Among the acts Mr. Prouty's team missed was one that occurred in December 1994, when Mr. Connolly tipped off Mr. Bulger about a secret federal indictment that enabled him to flee. He remains a fugitive.
Also hidden in F.B.I. files was information that Vincent Flemmi, an informer, murdered Edward Deegan in 1965. Despite knowing this, the F.B.I. allowed another of its informants to testify that four innocent men, including Joseph Salvati, had committed the killing. They were sentenced to life in prison.
Two of the men died in prison. Mr. Salvati's sentence was commuted in 1997, after he served 30 years. He is now preparing to sue the F.B.I. The fourth man was released from prison in recent months.
This month Congressional investigators found the 1965 memo to Mr. Hoover saying that Mr. Flemmi had committed the killing and would kill again but that "the informant's potential outweighs the risks."
A spokeswoman for the Boston F.B.I. office, Gail Mercinkicwicz, said that Mr. Prouty and the rest of the team had only five weeks to examine 25 years worth of activity.