For anyone who believes that gangster G-man John “Zip” Connolly should be cut loose from prison in Florida because he’s on death’s doorstep, I have two words for you:
Remember how the former House speaker, who is so crooked he needs a corkscrew to get into his pants in the morning, told the screws he was dying in stir? Sal pleaded to be let out of Club Fed immediately so he could go home to the North End and make a good Act of Contrition.
That was in 2016.
When last seen, Mistah Speakah (Bureau of Prisons #27371-038) was not only not dead, but was suing to become a State House lobbyist – returning to the scene of the crime, as it were.
He won, of course, and he’s now listed on the state’s lobbyist website, working out of a fourth-floor apartment in Melrose, not the plushest of lobbying digs by any means, but the point is, Salvatore Francis DiMasi is not dead.
Like Zip, Sal claimed to have cancer. But it’s amazing what “compassionate” release can do for your average jailbird. It’s cured more cancer-stricken convicts than Lourdes, hands down.
But what will Zip do if he’s cut loose from the second-degree murder sentence he’s serving for a Miami gangland hit he engineered for his Mob paymasters Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi in 1982?
Lotta job openings right now on the Massachusetts State Police — Zip would fit in perfectly, perhaps as the next colonel. Ditto, the Methuen Police Department — who better to follow in Chief Solomon’s extinguished footsteps?
Back in the glory days, Zip did everything but genuflect before both Bulger brothers, the serial killer and the Corrupt Midget. Zip dressed so much like a New York LCN hood — complete with chains, bespoke suits and slicked-back black hair — that his nickname in the Boston FBI office was “John Cannoli.”
Most likely, after the 80-year-old FBI hitman departs the scenic shores of Lake Okeechobee, he will return to his first love — cinematography. After his career as a crooked G-man ended, Zip penned an autobiographical Hollywood screenplay, “Only the Ghost Knows.”
When the phone didn’t ring, Zip knew he was ready for his close-up — not!
But Zip did star in a little-known screen gem back in 1985 — a half-hour training video for the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Va.
In it, Zip Connolly instructed the young agents in how to “handle” mobsters like the ones who were paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in cash.
I call Zip’s lost instructional masterpiece: “Never Try to Out-gangster A Gangster,” which is probably his most memorable statement in the video.
Only the FBI could be so simultaneously corrupt and incompetent as to select the most corrupt agent in Bureau history to lecture the next generation of Peter Strzoks on how to, well, not get caught.
“They want to meet and expect to meet an FBI agent, a professional individual.” This, from a professional hitman. “I have always maintained that as an agent we shouldn’t be trying to out-gangster a gangster.”
This, from a guy who took $200,000 in payoffs, according to the wiseguys, including a $10,000 severance payment when he resigned from the FBI and took a hack job at the Edison.
“You should be in the driver’s seat with these people. They’re either gonna rule you or you’re gonna rule them and if they’re ruling you it’s wasting your time and the Bureau’s time, and you could put yourself and the Bureau in a very melancholy position.”
This video was played at Zip Connolly’s first trial, for racketeering, in federal district court in Boston. It was one of the many pieces of evidence that put Zip in a very melancholy position.
Check out “Zip Connolly is Free” — Hour 4 of Wednesday’s Show.
“There’s going to be certain friendships that develop out of these things but you can never forget who you work for.”
And Zip never did — he was working for gangsters, Whitey and Stevie. A good job at a very, very good wage — and no income taxes withheld. Zip had a policy with Whitey and Stevie that was popular before its time: Don’t ask, don’t tell.
“My function is early on to let him know I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me something you’ve done because if you do you’re putting me in a position where I have to act on it. Now for anyone who thinks, well, you know, who’s ever gonna know, how do you know he’s not taping you?”
Whitey was taping, of course. And Zip had to have known, didn’t he?
So Wednesday morning Zip Connolly goes before the Parole and Conditional Medical Release Board in Florida. You can listen to the hearing live online, but if you’re working, Zip’s sequel to his greatest film will probably be available soon enough on Netflix or Hulu.
Working title: “A Very Melancholy Position: Out-gangstered by Gangsters.”
(To hear more of Zip’s FBI classic musings on how to “handle” gangsters, check out Howie’s Dirty Rats podcast on Connolly, “Crooked Cop,” available wherever you get your podcasts.)