John Morris | |
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Born | 1947 (age 76–77) |
Occupation | Former FBI agent |
John Morris (born 1947) is an American former FBI agent who was charged with corruption for his involvement with James "Whitey" Bulger, Steve Flemmi and the Winter Hill Gang. [1] He was the direct supervisor of John Connolly, who was convicted of racketeering, obstruction of justice and murder. [2] He and Connolly compiled much of Bulger's 700-page FBI informant file. [3]
Morris met Bulger for the first time in 1978, when Morris hosted a dinner at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts. [4] Morris was put in charge of the Organized Crime Squad at the FBI's Boston field office in December 1977. [5] Morris not only proved himself unable to rein in Connolly's protection of Bulger, but even began assisting him. [5]
In February 1979, federal prosecutors indicted numerous members of the Winter Hill Gang, including boss Howie Winter, for fixing horse races. Bulger and Stephen Flemmi were originally going to be part of this indictment, but Connolly and Morris were able to persuade prosecutor Jeremiah T. O'Sullivan to drop the charges against them at the last minute. Bulger and Flemmi were instead named as unindicted co-conspirators. [5]
By 1982, Morris was "thoroughly compromised", to the point of having Bulger purchase plane tickets for his then-girlfriend Debbie Noseworthy to visit him in Georgia while he was being trained for drug investigations. Even after 1983, when Morris was transferred to lead the Boston FBI's anti-drug task force, he remained an accomplice to Connolly and Bulger. [5]
In an attempt to protect himself, Morris disclosed the FBI's protection of Bulger in an off-the-record interview with the Boston Globe in 1988. He was later granted immunity in exchange for a testimony against Connolly, [3] who was jailed for forty years for second-degree murder. [2] He was released in 2021 on medical grounds. [6]
Connolly relocated to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, in the early 1990s. [2]
Morris was played by David Harbour in the 2015 movie Black Mass. [2]
Morris was married twice; firstly to Rebecca, [7] then to his former secretary, with whom he had a decade-long affair. [1]
James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger Jr. was an American organized crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish Mob group in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, a city directly northwest of Boston. On December 23, 1994, Bulger fled the Boston area and went into hiding after his former FBI handler, John Connolly, tipped him off about a pending RICO indictment against him. Bulger remained at large for sixteen years. After his 2011 arrest, federal prosecutors tried Bulger for nineteen murders based on grand jury testimony from Kevin Weeks and other former criminal associates.
The Winter Hill Gang was a loose confederation of organized crime figures in the Boston, Massachusetts, area. It was generally considered an Irish Mob organization, with most gang members and the leadership consisting predominantly of Irish-Americans, though some notable members, such as Johnny Martorano, are of Italian-American descent.
Stephen Joseph Flemmi is an American gangster and convicted murderer and was a close associate of Winter Hill Gang boss Whitey Bulger. Beginning in 1975, Flemmi was a top echelon informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Harold Paul Rico was an FBI agent, indicted for murder in 2003. He was accused of the 1968 framing of four men for murder but died before his trial would have taken place.
Francis Patrick Salemme, sometimes spelled Salemmi, also known as "Cadillac Frank" and "Julian Daniel Selig", was an American mobster from Boston, Massachusetts who became a hitman and eventually the boss of the Patriarca crime family of New England before turning government witness.
The Angiulo brothers, were the leading Italian-American crime group from Boston's North End, from the 1960s until the mid 1980s. Also, the street crew extended into East Boston, Roxbury, Waltham, Newton, Watertown, parts of Revere, and all other predominantly Italian American neighborhoods in Eastern Massachusetts. Their criminal organization was dubbed "In-Town", because one had to go in to town to visit the Angiulo Brothers.
Joseph Barboza Jr., nicknamed "the Animal", was an American mobster and notorious mob hitman for the Patriarca crime family of New England during the 1960s. A prominent enforcer and contract killer in Boston's underworld, Barboza became a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant in 1967 and later entered the Witness Protection Program. He was a star witness in the trial of six men convicted in the 1965 murder of Edward Deegan; four of the accused were sentenced to death and another two were sentenced to life imprisonment. It later emerged that Barboza had helped frame the six defendants in a case of wrongful conviction for the Deegan killing, which was allegedly actually committed by Barboza and Vincent Flemmi. He was shot dead in San Francisco in 1976 after his whereabouts became known to Patriarca underboss Gennaro Angiulo.
John Joseph Connolly Jr. is an American former FBI agent who was convicted of racketeering, obstruction of justice, and murder charges stemming from his relationship with James "Whitey" Bulger, Steve Flemmi, and the Winter Hill Gang.
Roger Milton Wheeler Sr. was an American businessman from Tulsa, Oklahoma, the former chairman of Telex Corporation, and former owner of World Jai Alai. He was murdered by members of organized crime who discovered that Wheeler had uncovered their embezzlement scheme at World Jai Alai.
Kevin Weeks is an American former mobster and longtime friend and mob lieutenant to Whitey Bulger, the infamous boss of the Winter Hill Gang, a crime family based in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts.
Patrick Joseph Nee is an Irish-American former mobster and Irish republican sympathizer. A former member of the Mullen Gang and the Winter Hill Gang, he is a Vietnam War veteran, and author of A Criminal and an Irishman; The Inside Story of the Boston Mob-IRA Connection.
Angelo "Sonny" Mercurio was an Italian-American mobster and a member of the Patriarca crime family who became an FBI informant that recorded for the first time a mafia induction ceremony. This recording led to the incarceration of family boss Raymond Patriarca, Jr. and several other high ranking mafioso. It also became a source of embarrassment for the organization. Subsequently after incarceration Mercurio was entered into the Witness Protection Program.
John Vincent Martorano is an American former gangster and former hitman for the Winter Hill Gang in Boston, Massachusetts, who has admitted to 20 mob-related killings.
Vincent James Flemmi, also known as "Jimmy The Bear", was an American mobster who freelanced for the Winter Hill Gang and the Patriarca crime family. He was also a longtime informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was also the brother of government informant Stephen Flemmi.
Louis R. Litif, also known as Nicholas Noonan and Louis Woodward, was an American bookmaker from South Boston, Massachusetts. After running afoul of neighborhood Irish Mob boss Whitey Bulger, Litif was murdered by the Winter Hill Gang in 1980. His body was left in a car trunk in the South End, Boston. The murder remained unsolved for decades.
Richard J. Castucci Sr. was an American member of the Patriarca crime family who owned several strip clubs and was involved in illegal gambling. Castucci eventually became a government informant.
Timothy A. Connolly III, aka "Timmy Connolly" and "TC", was an American former South Boston bar owner and mortgage broker, who wore a wire inside the infamous Winter Hill Gang and helped the federal government indict their two leaders, James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen Flemmi. The public was led to believe that Tim Connolly was merely a businessman and an innocent victim of one of Jim Bulger's many extortions. But in truth, Tim Connolly was secretly a "made member" of the Winter Hill gang and a high ranking lieutenant in this Bulger crime family.
The 1978 Blackfriars Massacre, also known as the Blackfriars murders, is an unsolved Irish Mob and/or Italian-American Mafia massacre that occurred on June 28, 1978, in the Blackfriars Pub in Downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Four criminals known to the police and a former Channel 7 Boston television investigative news anchorman, Jack Kelly, were killed, allegedly over the sale of cocaine.
Black Mass is a 2015 American biographical crime drama film about American mobster Whitey Bulger. Directed by Scott Cooper and written by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth, it is based on Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill's 2001 book Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob. The film features an ensemble cast led by Johnny Depp as Bulger, alongside Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Jesse Plemons, Peter Sarsgaard, Dakota Johnson, and Corey Stoll.
Jeremiah T. O'Sullivan was a Boston-based federal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice. In 2012, he was identified as the federal agent who, it is believed, provided immunity to Winter Hill Gang leader James "Whitey" Bulger. Bulger was accused of racketeering and being involved in nineteen murders. O'Sullivan was a lawyer in the 1970s and 1980s, prior to becoming the head of the New England Organized Crime Strike Force. In 1970, he was the Deputy Assistant Attorney-General for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
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