Re: [TSCM-L] {1781} Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity... My Ass

From: kondrak <kon..._at_phreaker.net>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 17:49:41 -0400

James M. Atkinson wrote:
> http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/07/26/wrongful.convictions.ap/index.html
>
> 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