The restaurant owner turned to the authorities for help, but when the case was forwarded to the FBI, agent Connolly took care that it would never leave the Organized Crime squad and obtained permission, about a year later, to officially close the case, arguing that the victim was reluctant to testify. In the years to come, Lehr and O'Neill claim, a similar pattern would emerge. "In the future it would seem like the world was divided between the FBI and Bulger, on the one hand, and all the other police agencies on the other" (p. What the FBI got in return for the protection it provided was, according to Lehr and O'Neill, helpful information but "(m)ost of it amounted to underworld gossip, and it was often flat-out self-serving" (p. In practice, however, nothing changed and Bulger was not even told about his putative change in status.Ĥ6).īetween 19, Bulger was officially shut down as top echelon informant because he had become the target of another FBI office's investigation into horse race fixing. When the race-fixing case became an imminent danger, Morris and Connolly first met with Bulger, who denied any involvement, and then with chief prosecutor Jeremiah T.Ĭonnolly continued his cooperation with Bulger under the protection of the new supervisor of the Organized Crime Squad, John Morris, who engaged in "creative record-keeping" to conceal the relationship. O'Sullivan who agreed to drop Bulger and Flemmi from the indictment. This successful intervention paved the way for an increasingly closer social relationship between underworld figures Bulger and Flemmi and FBI agents Connolly and Morris marked by frequent meetings, including dinner invitations to Morris' private home, and the exchange of presents. At the same time, the FBI agents ignored information that Bulger and Flemmi had begun to shake down gamblers, loan sharks and drug dealers who operated in their territory, and that the two, in fact, were allegedly overseeing the majority of sports betting, numbers action, and loan-sharking for the Boston area in a joint venture with Boston's Cosa Nostra.įollowing up on this intelligence was the Massachusetts State Police who with the support of a local prosecutor obtained permission to plant a bug in Bulger and Flemmi's new headquarters, a garage on Lancaster Street near Boston Garden. The bug was hardly up and running when Bulger and Flemmi abruptly changed their routine and stopped holding discussions in their office. What the police overheard was Bulger commending state troopers for the great job they did patrolling the Massachusetts Turnpike. As Flemmi later admitted, it was Connolly who tipped them off about the bug. In June of 1982, Morris attended a two-week training session in Georgia. Immediately he missed his girlfriend and through Connolly asked Bulger to arrange for an airline ticket for her.
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