After being told about James “Whitey†Bulger’s alleged tactics in extorting bookmakers, jurors in Bulger’s long-anticipated trial in US District Court in Boston are set today to hear testimony from two of them directly: James Katz and Richard O’Brien, two Boston area bookmakers who Bulger and his associates allegedly shook down and forced to pay tribute, or rent.
In the second full day of testimony in the South Boston gangster’s trial on a sweeping racketeering indictment, Katz is expected to testify that he paid rent to Bulger associate Stephen “The Rifleman†Flemmi under the understanding that the money was going to Bulger.
Prosecutors had targeted bookmakers with harsh prison sentences in the early 1990s as a strategy to force them to cooperate against higher-level criminals, and legal analysts said the strategy worked in forming the indictment against Bulger.
Katz, for instance, had been put in the witness protection program. He initially had been reluctant to testify, but was threatened with contempt of court and the possibility of a prison sentence .
On Thursday, the jury heard from Thomas J. Foley, a retired Massachusetts State Police colonel who testified that FBI agents constantly sabotaged his efforts to target Bulger, forcing investigators to rely on a hitman and other unsavory characters to build a case against the gangster and expose his corrupt relationship with the bureau.
Bulger’s defense team tried to use Foley’s testimony to argue that the FBI was so corrupt in its handling of the notorious South Boston gangster that its claim that he was an informant should not be believed. The defense also grilled Foley about whether the prosecution team let hitman-turned-government witness John Martorano refuse to testify against his friends, as long as he cooperated against Bulger.
