Ex FBI Agent Accused of Murder
Conspiracy
Breaking News October 10, 2003
http://www.lasvegassun.com/
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON (AP) - As an FBI agent in the 1960s and '70s, H. Paul Rico
recruited some of New England's most notorious underworld figures as
informants.
Now, Rico's dealings with Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, James
"Whitey" Bulger and John Martorano could land him in prison.
Rico, 78, was arrested Thursday at his home near Miami on Thursday and
charged with conspiring with his old informants in the 1981 murder of
Oklahoma businessman Roger Wheeler, who was shot in the head at a
Tulsa country club.
The charge was based on information from Flemmi, a
top lieutenant of
Bulger's who cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid a
trial next week on
charges of killing 10 people, The Boston Globe and Boston Herald
reported Friday, citing unnamed sources.
Flemmi, 69, agreed to cooperate with authorities
and plead guilty to
all charges in exchange for a recommended sentence of life in prison,
the newspapers reported.
Rico's arrest was the latest turn in a long-running scandal over the
cozy relationship between the Boston FBI and its underworld
informants. Last year, a former FBI agent was convicted of protecting
gangsters, including Bulger, who is on the FBI's
"Ten Most Wanted"
list and is sought in connection with 21 murders.
Investigators said Wheeler's slaying was linked to his purchase of
Florida-based World Jai Alai and his suspicion that Bulger
and Flemmi
were skimming money from the company. At the time, Rico was retired
from the FBI and the head of security for World Jai Alai.
Investigators said Rico provided Martorano, a hit
man for Boston's
Winter Hill Gang, with Wheeler's schedule so he could be killed.
Martorano admitted pulling the trigger and is
awaiting sentencing.
"He flat-out categorically denies this," his attorney, William
Cagney
III said. "He never assisted the Winter Hill Gang in trying to get
inside information so they could ... do away with people."
Rico, who is charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder, was
jailed in Florida pending extradition to Oklahoma. Gail Marcinkiewicz,
a spokeswoman for the Boston FBI, declined to comment on his arrest.
Rico spent 24 years with the FBI, specializing in organized crime
cases in Boston and cultivating Flemmi and others
as informants.
Bulger, the boss of the Winter Hill Gang, Flemmi and Martorano were
all charged in Wheeler's murder in 2001 by Oklahoma prosecutors.
Flemmi is serving a 10-year prison sentence on
extortion and money
laundering charges.
Prosecutors in Florida have issued an indictment charging all three in
the 1982 slaying of World Jai Alai executive John "Jack" Callahan
in
Miami. Investigators said they believe Callahan was killed to keep him
from telling authorities about links between World Jai Alai and the
mob.
The House Committee on Government Reform has been investigating the
Boston FBI office's ties to its mob informants, including Bulger,
who
fled in 1995 after being tipped off by then-agent John J. Connolly Jr.
that he was about to be indicted on federal racketeering charges.
During Connolly's trial last year, prosecutors said Bulger
and Flemmi
were left untouched by law enforcement for decades because they were
informing for the FBI on the New England Mafia, which is separate from
the Winter Hill Gang. Connolly is serving a 10-year prison sentence.
In 2001, Rico testified about another case before the congressional
committee. He denied he and his partner helped frame an innocent man
for a 1965 gangland slaying, but acknowledged that Joseph Salvati
wrongly spent 30 years in prison for the crime.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., accused Rico of feeling no remorse
for his role in the conviction of four innocent men in that case. Rico
replied, "What do you want, tears?"
Salvati's lawyer, Victor Garo,
predicted Rico's arrest will split the
Boston FBI scandal wide open, exposing more government wrongdoing in
Boston and Washington.
"He was the inside man of the Boston office of the FBI in dealing with
informants like Steve Flemmi and others," Garo said. "I would imagine
that right now many people are concerned about what he knows and what
he will say. ... He knows about all the skeletons in the closet."
Rico is not the first FBI agent to be charged with murder. In 1990,
Kentucky-based agent Mark S. Putnam pleaded guilty to strangling an
informant - a woman with whom he'd had an affair. At the time, an FBI
spokesman in Washington said he believed Putnam was the first FBI
agent ever to be charged with murder.
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