Howie Carr - Rifleman

The Untold Story
of Stevie Flemmi,
Whitey Bulgers Partner

Frandel, LLC

Copyright 2013, Howie Carr

ISBN: 978-0-9860372-0-7 (hardcover)

ISBN: 978-0-9860372-1-4 (epub)

ISBN: 978-0-9860372-2-1 (epdf)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013933065

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Printed in the United States of America.

This type of book can never be produced in a vacuum, and I owe more people thanks than I can possibly list, or should, given the sensitive positions many of them still work in.

But let me start with my lovely wife Kathy, who handled much of the business involved in publishing a book outside the traditional routes. Also thanks to my three daughters, Carolyn, Charlotte and Tina, who helped their Luddite father with his technological problems.

Beyond my family, most thanks are due to my radio producer, Nancy Sandy Shack, who stepped in and tirelessly handled the compilation of the photographs, which was not easy, believe me, because I tried doing it before I turned the chore over to her.

At the Boston Herald, where I have worked for so many years, thanks to everyone, starting with publisher Pat Purcell, editor Joe Sciacca and managing editor John Strahinich for the use of many of the pictures in this book. The photo staff was awesome, running down archived photos, especially the mugshots, some of which I feared had been lost forever in our recent move to Fargo Street. Special thanks to Mark Garfinkel, Arthur Pollock and Matt Stone, as well as to Herald librarian Martha Reagan.

Connor Perry, a talented student at Cooper Union, did a fantastic job on the cover, and Jeff Walsh, a graphic artist for the Herald, produced a clear, easy-to-read map outlining the neighborhood bases of the competing (and cooperating) mobs.

Thanks also to Emily Sweeney, author of the great book Boston Organized-Crime, for use of some of her best photos. I appreciate the invaluable assistance of Anthony Amore, director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Much appreciation to Diane Wiffin at the Mass. Department of Correction for a number of previously-unseen mugshots, and to the Boston Police Department public-relations unit, for the Mullens Gang wanted poster which I obtained during the writing of my previous book, Hitman.

As to all the other sources whose names I havent mentioned, you know Im just doing it for your own well-being. In the bad old days that this book covers, that would mean your physical well-being. Now I just refer to your career prospects. In any event, you know who you are, and you know you have my profound gratitude.

T HIS IS STEVIE Flemmis own story, dictated to the cops, in the presence of his own lawyers. The feds call it a DEA-6 and if it has a recurring theme, its that nothing that ever happened was Stevies fault. Whatever atrocities occurred, and there were many, Flemmi by his own account was not much more than a bystander. He was a victim of ambiguous circumstances, to quote Whitey Bulgers brother during one Fifth Amendment-heavy Congressional hearing in Boston.

If somebody had to be killed, it was done reluctantly. Or Whitey Bulger talked him into it. One time Stevie was under a great deal of stress. On another occasion, he and Whitey had had enough. What choice did they have?

It wasnt murder, either. It was elimination.

If there is ever a question about who was calling the shots, Flemmis answer is something along the lines of: Bulger was in control. He made all the decisions.

Stevie even knew why Whitey, originally a junior partner, took over the gang. It was his management abilities, Flemmi explained to his interrogators over a period of weeks in 2003-04.

As Stevie told the federal and state law-enforcement handlers to whom he dictated this 146-page testament, Things just developed. According to his own recounting of his life and crimes, Stevie was a font of practical, commonsense advice. In 1965, he warned his brother Jimmy he was going to get shot if he kept going home for dinner every night, and sure enough, he was. A few months later, he warned Winter Hill boss Buddy McLean that he was going to get shot if he kept going to the same bars every night, and sure enough, he was. In 1976, he ran into Patsy Fabiano who was on his way to dinner with a made member of the Mafia. Stevie says he knew exactly what was going to happen to Patsy, but he didnt bother to warn him. He didnt even say goodbye.

On other occasions, though, Stevie did save lives, if he does say so himself. The night of the Blackfriars massacre in 1978, he was at the Summer Street ginmill with his girlfriend Marilyn DiSilva. He had a strange hunch that something was amiss, and if anyone should have known when something like this was amiss, it was Stevie. He convinced Marilyn to leave the barroom before the gunmen burst in and murdered the five men inside. He probably saved her life, Flemmi modestly declares.

This book began as a document I received from a source several years ago. Once they have flipped, top-echelon organized-crime figures are routinely debriefed by federal law-enforcement about their life and crimes. In Flemmis case, his career dated from the mid-1950s, shortly after the end of the Korean War, until his arrest in January 1995 at the age of 60. He wasnt just a violent criminal either. According to Flemmi, he and Whitey had 25 to 30 Boston police officers on the pad. As Whitey used to say of his annual holiday payoffs, Christmas is for cops and kids.

As unreflective as Stevie Flemmi is in this autobiography of crime, he does tell a fascinating if horrific tale. At the beginning, gangs are swarming all over the city, squabblingand murderingeach other over practically nothing. In 1968, three innocent people died over a $100 loan shark debt owed to Stevie. Needless to say, it wasnt his fault. As late as 1980, Mafia enforcer Larry Baione would be recorded on an FBI bug saying that Flemmi and Whitey Bulger dont have two nickels to rub together.

But within two or three years, Stevie and Whitey had outmaneuvered their underworld rivals, both the Mafia and their own ostensible allies in the Winter Hill Gang. Everybody else was in jail or on the lam, and Whitey and Stevie were making up to a million dollars per shipload of marijuana being smuggled into Boston Harbor. Their only dutyproviding protection, which meant, basically, not informing their corrupt, bought cops of the drug ships arrivals.

As Flemmi explained of his and Whiteys non-duties in a later deposition, We werent involved in the logistical end of it... if that answers your question.

For most of his time on the street as a gangster, Stevie was simultaneously an informant for the FBI, which is more than ironic, considering that another recurring theme in this brief report is how often people in his orbit were murdered because they, too, were informantsor rats, or snitches, as Whitey and Stevie often called the hoodlums who did the same thing they did, only not as successfully.