Where the Bodies Were Buried

by T. J. English

  It was a modest repudiation of the government’s case, but Uhlar wishes she had done more. “I do have regrets. I regret that I didn’t dig my heels in and go for a no finding.”

  As for the concept of jury nullification, which the prosecutors had claimed was a subterranean goal of the defense, Uhlar says it never crossed her or anyone else’s mind. “The way the crimes were packaged made it hard to declare anything but guilty. If Bulger was part of the enterprise, he was guilty of crimes committed by the enterprise. Judge Casper reiterated that during her charge to the jury. She made it clear that she did not want ‘no finding.’”

  At the Palm, Uhlar hardly touched her food. She talked nonstop. She had kept her feelings about the trial bottled up for so long that it now came out in a torrent. In her worst moments, she said, she feels as though by voting guilty she had become part of a cover-up on the part of the Justice Department. “We were held captive for ten weeks. I was deceived. The first thing I did when the trial ended was to google ‘Jeremiah O’Sullivan.’ There’s a name—every time it came up the prosecutors objected. There’s so much about this case that we weren’t allowed to know. . . . This trial was a fundamental violation of the Constitution.”

  THE DAY AFTER I met juror number twelve, the court was scheduled to hear impact statements from the family members. It was an emotional day. Most of the people speaking before the court were now in middle age; they had been mere children when their loved one was murdered by Bulger or others associated with his crew. Most of these people had grown up knowing that the notorious Whitey Bulger had played a role in the killing of their father, uncle, sister, or daughter. Within the community, these were intimate murders, hushed in silence because they had occurred under the umbrella of organized crime. These people had grown up consumed with fear and hatred for the man who through his powerful political brother, his connections in law enforcement, and his control of the underworld had, for decades, seemed to be above the law.

  One by one, they stood to speak, twelve of them in all. Many were consumed with emotion. Here was the murderer sitting in front of them, dressed on this day in an orange prison jumpsuit, looking even older and more withered than he had just two months earlier. Here was the man they had hated as far back as they could remember. It was almost too much to process.

  Sean McGonagle, the son of Paulie McGonagle, stood at the podium and referred to Bulger as Satan. He was eleven years old when his father disappeared; he’s now forty-nine. His voice choked with emotion, he vividly recounted how a few months after his father’s disappearance, he received a phone call one day. The voice on the line said, “Your father’s not coming home for Christmas.” Sean McGonagle recognized the voice. It was Whitey Bulger. The voice was unmistakable. But still he asked, “Who is this?” The person answered, “Santa Claus,” and then hung up.

  In the pantheon of cruelty in the life of a mobster, there are bound to be many indefensible acts, but calling the young son of someone you murdered and taunting them with the knowledge that his father would not be home for Christmas was in a category all by itself.

  Bulger looked down at his legal pad, scribbling notes. He never once made eye contact.

  McGonagle concluded by saying, “You thought you carried yourself as an Irish icon. Nothing could be farther from the truth.”

  The son of Al Notarangeli stood to speak, and the daughter of Billy O’Brien. Patricia Donahue spoke, as did the daughter of Stephen Rakes, a son and daughter of Eddie O’Connor, and the son of John Callahan.

  Steve Davis was allowed to speak. “It’s been a long thirty-two years,” he said. “I have fought hard for justice for my sister Debbie.” Davis became overwhelmed with tears, struggled to get out the words. “This man has built up so much hate in my heart. I’d like to strangle him myself. The son of a bitch should have to look in the eyes of his victims.” Davis yelled at Bulger: “You piece of shit, look at me!” Whitey glanced up briefly, then looked away.

  Davis ended by saying, “I hope Whitey dies the same way my sister did, gasping for breath as he takes his last breath.”

  The daughter of Bucky Barrett stepped forward. Her name was Theresa Bond, and she was strangely calm. After introducing herself, she said in a soft, almost kindly voice, “Mr. Bulger, would you please look at me?” Her tone was so different than the others who had spoken that it caught Bulger off guard. He looked up. She reminded Bulger that on the night her father was murdered, he had been praying to a photo he had in his wallet, a photo of a young girl. “That was me,” said Bond. “I was that little girl.”

  Bulger looked down. He betrayed no emotion, but it seemed as though Theresa Bond had reached Bulger in a way the others had not—not through invective or hatred, but through forgiveness. “I just want you to know that I don’t hate you,” she told him. “I don’t have that authority. That would be judging you. I do hate the choices that you’ve made, along with your associates, but more so, I hate the choices our government has made in allowing you to rule the streets and perform such horrific acts of evil.”

  Whitey hung his head in what seemed like shame, and Bond finished by saying, “Mr. Bulger, do you have remorse for taking my father’s life? I think you do. I forgive you.”

  There was so much personal animosity toward Bulger, built up over a lifetime of suffering, that few of the victims’ family members could see beyond Whitey. He had become the symbol of an evil that lurked in their community and the city; he had shattered lives almost beyond comprehension. None thought to reflect upon the context that made Bulger possible—except for one.

  David Wheeler, the son of Roger Wheeler, had turned his father’s murder into something of a crusade. Not long after Roger Wheeler had been murdered in Tulsa, shot in the face by John Martorano, the Wheeler family had begun to suspect that the killing had been facilitated by retired FBI agent H. Paul Rico. This was especially shocking, since Rico had been hired as a security consultant for World Jai Lai by Roger Wheeler. As the son noted in his courtroom statement, “My father’s fatal mistake proved to be his faith in the FBI. . . . A team of retired FBI agents, led by former agent H. Paul Rico, assured him that they would protect his business and ‘keep it clean.’”

  Standing at the podium, Wheeler was a son of wealth and privilege, as distinguished from the working-class Boston folks who had given impact statements. His father had been CEO of an international company. The Wheeler family had been slow to comprehend the conspiracy of corruption that led to his father’s murder. After the killing, said Wheeler, “I was confident that we would quickly catch Rico and his criminal associates. Sadly, my faith in the American government was misplaced.”

  It wasn’t until sixteen years after Roger Wheeler was murdered that the family learned the truth. John Martorano provided the details at the Wolf hearings in 1997. It was also then that the family learned that John Callahan and Brian Halloran had both been killed to keep them from talking about the Wheeler murder, a cycle of killing that involved not only former FBI agent Rico, but also Agents Connolly and Morris. This raised many unanswered questions. Asked David Wheeler, “How many others were involved in these and other FBI informant murders? Who else at the bureau knew about these secret relationships with these vicious criminals but turned away, said nothing, as others were murdered? Did any supervisors or other agents care to ask any questions, connect the few simple dots between these murders and their own informants? Where was the Justice Department in all this?”

  Eventually, the Wheeler family filed a lawsuit against the FBI and the Justice Department for their role in their father’s wrongful death. The government responded that it was too late; that the Wheeler family should have filed their suit against the government years ago. The statute of limitations had passed.

  It was as if the family were to blame for not fully grasping the conspiracy behind their father’s murder until it was too late. After all these years, it still riled David Wheeler, who grasped the podium with both hands and almost shouted: “Everyone
within the sound of my voice should understand this: the FBI, entrusted with the greatest law enforcement powers in the nation, is responsible for my father’s murder. They are as responsible for that murder as this defendant sitting here before you.”

  Wheeler’s statement was a barnburner. The problem was that Wheeler’s words seemed aimed at issues barely touched upon at the trial.

  The day after the impact statements, Bulger was brought back to the courthouse for his final appearance. He stood before Judge Casper, who prefaced her sentencing of Bulger with a statement. She called Whitey “evil,” “reprehensible,” “monstrous.” Her words were the culmination of what the trial had been for many Bostonians: a demonization of Whitey Bulger as the greatest criminal mastermind the city had ever seen.

  Casper sentenced Bulger to two life terms, plus seventy-five years.

  Bulger was asked if he had anything to say.

  “No,” he answered.

  He was led from the courtroom for the final time.

  IN THE DAYS and weeks following the trial, I spoke with Kevin Weeks and Pat Nee. Both were satisfied with the verdict but seemed to derive no great sense of pleasure or closure from the proceedings. Weeks, in particular, saw the trial as a public disgrace for Bulger that could have been avoided if Whitey had simply pleaded guilty to the charges. For Kevin, closure was a pipe dream: he has two sons entering young adulthood who will be made to answer for his legacy as Bulger’s protégé and also the man who brought him down by testifying against him in court.

  “It hasn’t been easy for them,” Weeks told me. “All I can do is be there and give them the support that I never really had when I was their age.”

  As for Nee, the concerns were more of a legal nature. Rumors persisted after the trial that local prosecutors would attempt to bring charges against him for various crimes in which he was alleged to have played a role, including, most notably, the double murder of Brian Halloran and Michael Donahue. Nee makes no attempt to hide from these allegations. The fact that he continues to circulate in Southie and, in some quarters, remains a well-respected member of the community is Nee’s way of saying, “You have no case against me.”

  Following the trial, Nee’s more immediate concern was that Saint Hoods, his reality show on the Discovery Channel, was canceled after only two episodes had been aired. The former gangster had mixed feelings. “The money was decent,” he told me. “I’ll miss that. But the notoriety was more trouble than it was worth. I never wanted to be a media sensation. I’ll leave that to Whitey.”

  FROM THE PERSPECTIVE of the U.S. Department of Justice, the trial of Whitey Bulger was an unequivocal success. The devil had been burned at the stake in the town square, and the town had reveled in his demise. The trial provided the government with the self-justification they had been denied while Bulger was on the run for sixteen years. Not only had they nailed Bulger, silencing those who claimed they had no interest in prosecuting the well-connected gangster, but they had done so in a way that effectively shut all doors leading to further official areas of inquiry. The historical framework that created Bulger—and the law enforcement strategy that gave him his power—remained mostly unexamined. The individuals responsible, aside from John Connolly, would not be legally held to task.

  The cost of the trial was considerable: U.S. taxpayers paid approximately $6 million to stage the trial at the Moakley Courthouse. Prosecutors, defense lawyers, and their staffs had to be paid. The expense of transferring Bulger on a daily basis to and from Plymouth County Correctional Facility, escorted by a law enforcement motorcade, was considerable. Witnesses had to be flown in from around the United States and put up in hotels. The jury was paid transportation expenses and fed on a daily basis. The security detail at the courthouse was twice its normal size.

  With the expense of such a high-profile proceeding, a discerning citizen might have expected more than a show trial. Given that there never was any doubt that Bulger would be found guilty of crimes that would result in him being put away for life, the trial could have been a legal exploration of the law enforcement policy that makes it possible for a man like Whitey Bulger to thrive. Instead, the trial was largely a strategic rope-a-dope designed to contain and focus all venom on Bulger, while the many players who had enabled and protected his reign—for personal or institutional reasons—were allowed to fade into retirement.

  For anyone who thinks this a minor injustice, or a local issue only relevant to Boston, consider the following: the policies that created Whitey Bulger are still in place. The Top Echelon Informant Program has been discontinued in name only. Local cops and federal agents still cultivate and pay criminal informants, and sometimes those criminals continue to prey upon people and commit murder while serving as informants. It happens all the time. In areas of organized crime, gangs, and the narcotics business, in particular, this tango between criminals and the law is how criminal cases are made. The scope of these arrangements can be vast and far-reaching. It exists at every level of the underworld, from low-level street criminals to mob bosses like Whitey Bulger and beyond.

  Right now, somewhere in America, agents from the FBI, DEA, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), or ICE are cultivating informants—maybe a Mexican assassin in the narco trade, or a young Muslim who could penetrate a suspected terrorist cell, or a member of the Aryan Nations who is also a meth distributor. Deals will be made with these criminals that shall remain intentionally vague and clandestine. These criminals will utilize the arrangement to enhance their position in the underworld; that may be why they agreed to take part in the arrangement to begin with. The criminal and the agent will enter into a dance of mutual manipulation, and the wiliest man or woman shall come out on top. If the arrangement goes haywire, as they sometimes do, the agent, and most especially the agent’s handlers within the system, will cut and run. They will deny involvement and seek institutional protection through the destruction of documents, bureaucratic smoke screens, or a skewed prosecution, as was the case in the disposal of the Bulger fiasco.

  Unless this policy is called into question, and those who use and abuse it are held accountable, it will continue to metastasize, playing out on ever more grandiose levels.

  Consider, for instance, the case of Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of a powerful cartel boss in Mexico who was himself a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel.

  At the same time that Bulger was on trial in Boston, Zambada Niebla was being held on racketeering, narcotics, and murder charges at a prison outside Chicago. In 2010, when Zambada Niebla was indicted and arrested in the United States, he claimed that he could not be prosecuted because he was operating under an immunity agreement with the DEA.

  In legal papers filed in federal court, lawyers for Zambada Niebla claimed:

  Sometime prior to 2004, and continuing through the time period covered in the indictment, the United States government entered into an agreement with . . . the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel. Under this agreement, the Sinaloa Cartel . . . was to provide information against rival Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations to the United States government. . . . In return, the United States government agreed to dismiss pending cases against [the Sinaloa Cartel], not to interfere with drug trafficking activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, to not actively prosecute the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, and to not apprehend them.

  The allegations were stunning but would have been familiar to anyone who had followed the Bulger case. Just as the FBI had done back in the 1960s when they played an incendiary role in the Boston gang wars, the DEA was accused of taking sides in the Mexican cartel wars. The results were similar, but on a much larger scale. In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, located along the border with El Paso, Texas, narco violence reached unprecedented levels. The Sinaloa Cartel was engaged in a bloody war with the Juarez Cartel. According to Zambada Niebla, they won that war because they were being covertly protected by the U.S. Department of Justice.

  After the dust had settled, Zamb
ada Niebla played a role similar to that of Steve Flemmi. Just as Flemmi, upon arrest, had divulged his and Bulger’s deal with the feds, Zambada Niebla claimed that he and his cartel had formed a similar deal with the DEA.

  In 2014, the U.S. government reached a plea deal with Zambada Niebla. Rather than go to trial, which would have presented prosecutors with a containment challenge even greater than what Wyshak and Kelly encountered, the cartel underboss was allowed to plead guilty and accept a relatively light sentence of ten years in prison. This way, the gangster’s tales would remain untold in a public forum.

  The Bulger and Zambada Niebla cases, when placed against the larger framework of law enforcement strategies and DOJ policy, seem to suggest a long-standing pattern of U.S. agents acting not as lawmen but as players in the underworld, making secret deals, pitting one side against another, and protecting those who are deemed to be “on our side.” Just as Bulger and Flemmi had supplied underworld intelligence to agents that helped them make cases against the Mafia, the Sinaloa Cartel would supply info to the DEA, helping them make major cartel-related narcotics cases in the United States.

  The game goes on, and there is much collateral damage. Sometimes innocent people get killed, or framed for crimes they did not commit. There is a system of justice in the United States that is supposed to help protect the innocent and see to it that the law is applied with fairness and transparency. But the Bulger trial seemed to suggest that in some cases the pursuit of justice takes a backseat to the dictates of bureaucratic self-preservation.