John “Zip” Connolly is apparently one of those hoodlums who cares what his obituary says about him after he’s dead and gone.
At age 82, the infamous ex-FBI agent seems obsessed with clearing at least one indelible stain off his remarkably squalid (even by Boston G-man standards) underworld career.
He’d prefer not to have “Mob hitman” in the first sentence of his death notice. There’s not much he can do about the racketeering conviction, or all his tawdry connections to the Bulger Crime Family.
But “Mob hitman” is a bit much.
Sadly, Zip has failed yet again to remove “assassin” from his c.v., after a pathetically feeble attempt in Florida to clear his name.
A state appeals court in Florida this month denied Zip “post-conviction relief” from his second-degree murder conviction. He was found guilty of setting up the 1982 gangland hit on a Boston businessman who was preparing to testify against Zip and his serial-killing, cocaine-dealing gangland bosses, Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi.
Zip ratted out John Callahan, whose body then ended up in the trunk of a rented car in the long-term parking lot at Miami International Airport.
Zip’s job in the bloodthirsty crew was snitching on any plug uglies who might flip against his pals. The job of organized-crime finger man paid well. Zip ended up with mansions in Chatham and Lynnfield as well as a large boat. In those pre-direct deposit days he often went months without cashing his government paycheck.
He pocketed at least $200,000 in dirty cash over the course of his underworld career, which included supervisory duties. As the Florida court noted:
“(The mobsters) also used the defendant as a conduit for the delivery of cash and gifts from Bulger and Flemmi to other FBI agents.”
There were at least six G-men from the Boston office on the gangsters’ payroll. Zip delivered cash and booze and God only knows what else to his fellow feds.
At the time of his arrest, Zip was working on a Hollywood screenplay about his career as a fearless crusading G-man. He was convicted, first of racketeering and corruption in Boston, and then of Callahan’s murder in Miami.
Zip should still be down in Florida serving out his 40-year sentence. But he was released in 2021 due to his “terminal illness,” which has turned out to be not so terminal. Funny how these thieving Democrats all seem to have miraculous recoveries after they’re cut loose from prison.
Am I right, Sal DiMasi?
Zip filed a frivolous motion in Florida to get his murder conviction overturned, claiming a witness who could have cleared him was for some reason not allowed to testify at his murder trial in 2007.
His would-be witness was another corrupt ex-G-man in Boston by the name of Robert Fitzpatrick.
Back in 2016, Zip’s star witness was convicted in federal court of six counts each of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Which raises the question, what do you call an FBI agent in the Boston office who’s only been convicted of 12 felonies?
The best and the brightest.
Supposedly, Fitzpatrick could have testified that Zip had nothing to do with the Callahan hit. The problem was that before his death, Fitzpatrick was, as the Florida judges noted, “unstable.”
What almost landed Fitzpatrick in prison was a lousy book he wrote about his career as a fearless crusading G-man – stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Fitzpatrick just made up a bunch of lies about what he’d done, as if he were the president of the United States or a columnist for the Boston Globe.
But hey, Fitzie was a fed. That’s what they all do. They lie. You could ask Donald Trump, or almost any Republican for that matter.
Fitzpatrick got away with it until 2013 when he was sworn in as a defense witness at Whitey Bulger’s murder trial. This allowed the prosecution to ask the bent fed about all the BS he’d made up for his book.
It was classic courtroom theater when prosecutor Brian Kelly took him down.
Kelly asked Fitzpatrick about his assorted false claims, among them the brag that he had personally arrested Mafia boss Jerry Angiulo back in 1984. Was that true?
Fitzpatrick: “I wish I did arrest the – I did arrest him.”
Kelly: “Not what you wished you did. Didn’t you tell this jury, ‘I also arrested Angiulo?’”
Fitzpatrick: “I did arrest Angiulo.”
Kelly: “That’s a total bald-faced lie, isn’t it?”
The next morning Kelly resumed his cross-examination. It was brutal. Fitzpatrick claimed he couldn’t remember anything he’d said the previous afternoon before he staggered off to the Barking Crab for liquid refreshment.
Fitzpatrick: “You’re asking me to recall something that I may not recall.”
Kelly: “Do you have any medical issues with your memory?”
Fitzpatrick: “Not that I recall.”
Shortly thereafter, Fitzpatrick was indicted for perjury. But that was far from the first time he’d channeled Da Nang Dick Blumenthal or Brian Williams.
As the Florida judges said, “The record before us is replete with irreconcilably contradictory statements rendered by Fitzpatrick in the years leading up to his death.”
This was the guy Zip was counting on to provide him with an alibi. But the court said no.
So Zip is still officially a Mob hitman. That’s the bad news. The good news is, Zip is now years past the deadline Florida gave him to be dead by, lest he be returned to state prison. He’s still living large on his bloated G-man pension, just as Fitzpatrick did right up until his death in 2021.
It’s great to be a Democrat fed, isn’t it?
If he still wants something positive for his obituary, Zip might use the fawning tribute Whitey Bulger’s brother Billy – the Corrupt Midget – delivered at his FBI retirement dinner in 1990.
“He’s a splendid human being,” Billy said. “He’s a good pal…. John Connolly is the personification of loyalty.”
That statement is on videotape, Zip. And I’ll add my own encomium that you can feel free to use.
Friends help you move. Good friends help you move bodies.
Zip Connolly was a good friend. They don’t make Mob hitmen like Zip Connolly any more.