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“FBI HELPED FRAME FOUR IN 1965 MURDER” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H8733 on July 26, 2007.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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FBI HELPED FRAME FOUR IN 1965 MURDER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, I wish the whole world were listening to what we are talking about tonight. In 1965, there with a murder committed in Boston, Massachusetts, and a man named Deegan was shot down. A man named Joe ``The Animal'' Barboza, the first man in the witness protection program, who was protected by the FBI in Boston, testified that a man named Joe Salvati, a man named Peter Limone, and two other people were involved in the murder, and they were not.
J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI in the Boston office knew these men were innocent, but because they were protecting a Mob informant of the Winter Hill Gang headed by Whitey Bulger, they put these guys in jail for life. They were going to give them the death penalty, but that was commuted to life in prison.
Joe Salvati was the fellow that I worked with when I was chairman of the Government Reform Committee. We had hearings on this that lasted for about a year. We had some of the FBI witnesses testify before the committee. One man, named Rico, who was an honored FBI agent, lied about Joe Salvati, and Joe Salvati went to jail for 29 years, 29 years for a crime he didn't commit.
Two of the men who were convicted and went to jail died in prison, and Mr. Limone just got out in 2001. There is no question these men were innocent. We subpoenaed documents from the Justice Department and had to fight the administration to get them because they were claiming executive privilege. We finally got the documents, and we found that all of the way up to the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, they knew these men were innocent, but they put them in jail to protect Mob informants, Joe ``The Animal'' Barboza, the first man in the witness protection program, and James, ``The Rifleman'' Flemmi, a friend of his, who was also a killer.
Joe ``The Animal'' Barboza was shot down in San Francisco years later because he was still involved in Mob hits. He killed over 28 people that we know of.
But anyhow to make a long story short, the long fight for justice was finally concluded today in Boston in a Federal court.
Judge Nancy Gertner issued a finding for Salvati and the other three men who were innocent of the crime but convicted and spent all that time in jail, two of whom died in jail, and she issued an order giving them $101.7 million because of this horrible crime that was committed against them by our justice system.
We have an awful lot of fine people in the FBI, the CIA and our other intelligence agencies, but unfortunately, we have had some bad apples in the system.
One of the gentlemen who was the head of the FBI up there is spending 2 to 10 years in jail for another crime. He's facing possibly another murder sentence when he gets out of jail because of something else he was involved in.
Mr. Rico was indicted for a murder that involved a man who was shot to death in Oklahoma at one of the golf courses there when he took his golf clubs out of the trunk. Mr. Rico had fingered him to the mob, and the mob went down there and killed him because this guy was the owner of an international company, and he found out that the mob was siphoning money off of him. So Mr. Rico who testified before our committee fingered this guy, and this guy was shot to death in Oklahoma City when he took his golf clubs out of his trunk. Mr. Rico, before he went to trial, died of a heart attack, but he had been indicted for the murder of this man who had been killed in Oklahoma City.
The long arm of justice reached out to these FBI agents, Mr. Connolly and Mr. Rico, who violated their trust, and also, it should reach out to J. Edgar Hoover. J. Edgar Hoover, whom I admired all of my life and I watched him on television and watched all the accolades that he was given, he knew these men were innocent, but to protect a mob informant, Joe ``The Animal'' Barboza, he put these guys in jail, and they left them there.
Joe Salvati's wife grew older without him. His children grew old without him. His wife went every week to see him for 29 years in prison. She didn't have a driver's license so she had to have people drive her out there. So Joe Salvati and his whole family suffered because of this.
I talked to Joe tonight. He's elated. His wife's elated, but they can't get back the 29 years that they suffered when he was in jail for a crime he didn't commit or Mr. Limone didn't commit.
So I'd like to say tonight that I want to congratulate Judge Nancy Gertner. I've never met her, but what she said in that court today really bears to be repeated. She said that the FBI case against Salvati and what they said in this court today was absurd. She said that the Justice Department said that these gentlemen were acceptable collateral damage.
Madam Speaker, I will put the rest in the Record because I want everybody to know about this, and I just want to make sure that everybody knows that these gentlemen were innocent, and this should never ever happen in a court of justice again ever.
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