[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20888-20889]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2300
                  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

[[Page 20889]]

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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