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4.2.12 WC: 191694 Helping the prosecution keep an FBI murderer in prison I’m a defense lawyer. Unlike many current defense lawyers, I never served as a prosecutor (though I advise my students who want to become defense attorneys to work in a good prosecutor’s office for a few years.) Also unlike some defense attorneys, I admire good prosecutors, who do their jobs ethically and professionally. The adversarial system of justice requires zealous prosecution as well as zealous defense. Good prosecutors are the “gatekeepers” of justice: they decide which of the many cases that come before them to prosecute, which not to prosecute, what charges to seek, when to plea bargain and how high a sentence to recommend. Bad prosecutors—those who base such critical decisions on political, personal, financial or other corrupt considerations—can do enormous harm to our system of justice. I’ve been privileged over my career to know some extraordinary prosecutors. I’ve also been privileged to help expose some corrupt prosecutors, policemen and FBI agents. The case of John Connolly was an example of both. In that highly-charged case, which was the subject of the semi-functional, but mostly fact-based, film “The Departed,” I helped an excellent prosecutor keep a corrupt FBI agent in prison. The prosecutor who asked for my help is the State Attorney of Dade County Florida, which covers the City of Miami and several smaller cities. Katherine Fernandez Rundle replaced Janet Reno in 19 _, when President Clinton appointed Reno to serve as Attorney General of the United States. She has been repeatedly reelected and served with distinction since. John Connolly was a high ranking FBI agent in Boston, who had grown up in the “Southie” neighborhood of Boston along with the notorious “Whitey” Bulger, who was responsible for dozens, perhaps hundreds, of cold-blooded murders, and his corrupt younger brother William “Billy” Bulger who served as President of the Massachusetts Senate and then President of the University of Massachusetts, before he was forced out of office by Governor Mitt Romney. During the reign of the Bulger brothers, Billy served as the Godfather and Whitey as the enforcer of a systematically corrupt political, economic and legal system. Nothing got done—no large buildings were constructed, no important jobs secured, no political appointments made—without “tribute” being paid to the Godfather. If anyone crossed Billy, he had to worry about being literally killed by Whitey. If anyone crossed Whitey, he had to worry about suffering political or economic death at the hands of Billy. For example, when a state trooper stopped and searched Whitey at Logan Airport, finding a large bag filled with cash, the trooper found himself demoted, disgraced and ultimately driven to suicide. And when Whitey was about to be indicted, Billy’s protégé, John Connolly, tipped the gangster off, allowing him to escape and become a fugitive for __ years. Connolly also tipped off Billy to the details of an investigation that targeted him for extorting a half-million dollar bribe from a Boston builder. But these were not the only tip-offs John Connolly provided the Bulgers. He also gave Whitey the names of “stool pigeons” who were about to inform or testify against htm—in other words who had to be “silenced” to protect Whitey and his colleagues. Several murders were plainly attributable to this leaking of information from the FBI to gangland killers and hit men. One such murder was committed in the Miami area and John Connolly was 213 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017300