U.S. must pay $101M to wrongly imprisoned men
Judge: FBI encouraged perjury, helped frame four men in 1965 killing
Men and families sued federal government for malicious prosecution
They argued FBI agents knew mob hit man lied when he tied men to killing
Awarding $101.7 million in damages, judge calls government's position "absurd"
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A federal judge Thursday ordered the
government to pay more than $101 million in the case of four men who
spent decades in prison for a 1965 murder they didn't commit after
the FBI withheld evidence of their innocence.
The FBI encouraged perjury, helped frame the four men and withheld
for more than three decades information that could have cleared them,
U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said in issuing her ruling Thursday.
She called the government's argument that the FBI had no duty to get
involved in the state case "absurd."
Peter Limone, Joseph Salvati and the families of the two other men
who died in prison had sued the federal government for malicious prosecution.
They argued that Boston FBI agents knew mob hitman Joseph "the
Animal" Barboza lied when he named the men as killers in the 1965
death of Edward Deegan. They said Barboza was protecting a fellow FBI
informant, Vincent "Jimmy" Flemmi, who was involved.
The four men convicted on Barboza's lies were treated as "acceptable
collateral damage" because the FBI's priority at the time was taking
down the Mafia, their attorneys said.
A Justice Department lawyer had argued that federal authorities
couldn't be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution
and had no duty to share information with the officials who
prosecuted Limone, Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco.
"The FBI's misconduct was clearly the sole cause of this conviction,"
the judge said Thursday. "The government's position is, in a word, absurd."
"No lost liberty is dispensable. We have fought wars over this
principle. We are still fighting these wars," Gertner told the packed
courtroom.
Salvati and Limone were exonerated in 2001 after FBI memos dating
back to the Deegan case surfaced, showing the men had been framed by
Barboza. The memos were made public during a Justice Department task
force probe of the FBI's relationship with gangsters and FBI
informants James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi.
Limone, now 73, and Salvati, 75, stared straight ahead as the judge
announced her ruling. A gasp could be heard from the area where their
friends and family were sitting when Gertner said how much the
government would be forced to pay.
The men's attorneys had not asked for a specific amount in damages,
but in court documents they cited other wrongful conviction cases in
which $1 million was awarded for every year of imprisonment. Gertner
ordered the government to pay $101.7 million.
"Do I want the money? Yes, I want my children, my grandchildren to
have things I didn't have, but nothing can compensate for what
they've done," Salvati said.
Salvati had been sentenced to life in prison as an accessory to
murder and served more than 29 years before his sentence was commuted in 1997.
"It's been a long time coming," said Limone, who served 33 years in
prison before he was freed in 2001. "What I've been through -- I hope
it never happens to anyone else."
Justice Department attorney Bridget Bailey Lipscomb declined
immediate comment on the ruling.
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Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:27 CST