Bulger Day 21: The Halloran Hit
So Whitey Bulger’s on trial and you’re interested in hearing about it, but you’ve got this darn day job and you can’t manage to keep up with all the live tweets. We feel you. Here’s what you missed. (Past coverage here.)
The Witnesses: The jurors heard the end of testimony from retired FBI Agent Gerald Montanari, who finished describing how he cultivated Brian Halloran as an FBI informant. Halloran was willing to testify against Bulger in an Oklahoma murder, and though Montanari says he tried to keep it “close to the chest,” his partner told their supervisor John Morris, who said earlier in the trial that he in turn told corrupt FBI Agent John Connolly, who he suspects told Bulger.
Montanari says that after Halloran turned up dead, the key FBI supervisors met in Washington DC during which time Montanari suggested Bulger had been involved in both the Halloran murder and the Oklahoma case. John Connolly, he says, “respectfully disagreed.”
Halloran’s brother, Robert, a retired state police trooper, also testified. He said Brian had told him he was cooperating with the FBI and that Bulger wanted him dead. Robert later identified his body.
The defendant: It was a subdued day for Bulger, who once again appeared in a colar-less shirt and jeans. (He’d been on a roll with the collars this week.) He must be saving up his energy for the next big witness, Stephen Flemmi.
Coming up next: U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz thinks the prosecution will rest sometime next week. Bulger’s defense lawyers also released a list of 37 people they want to call as defense witnesses, pared down from a list of 80. Notable among them is Marion Hussey, mother of a woman Bulger is accused of strangling. Bulger’s former ally Patrick Nee is also there as well as several law enforcement agents. Notably not among the witnesses are the Boston Globe and Boston Herald reporters Bulger’s lawyers initialy put on the list, reportedly so that they might be barred from reporting on the trial.
