And people wonder why I don't trust the government to not abuse the "Patriot Act".
And people wonder why I don't trust the government to not abuse the "Patriot Act".
The same government that others think should be in charge of our retirement money and all of our health care records as well.
One would get the impression that this frame up happened recently but it happened 42 years ago under J Edgar Hoover.
I would hope that reforms have been implemented since then.
What it means is the case came up for a review 42 years later. It does not mean that the FBI as an institution spend those past 42 years shoring up the lies. I'll reserve judgment on the FBI as a whole until more data is available.
| The poetic justice of delivering such a historic moment of vindication, almost 39 years to the day of their framing for the murder of a low-level hood named Teddy Deegan, was not lost on Judge Gertner. Not only did Gertner emphatically conclude the plaintiffs had proven all their accusations, she proceeded to excoriate the culture of the FBI and specifically a pair of rogue former G-Men, H. Paul Rico and Dennis Condon, for the actual gangsters they were. At every turn, Gertner said, Rico and Condon not only orchestrated the framing of four men - Salvati, Limone, Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo - they knew were innocent, but for decades thereafter they worked to cement the lies, as they celebrated their treachery. The feds had deliberatly planned to sacrifice four men to protect killers such as Joe ?The Animal? Barboza and Jimmy Flemmi, who were supposedly providing the likes of J. Edgar Hoover with invaluable information in his anemic war against the Mafia. |
You are free to cast doubts and distrust as you see fit. What surprises me is that you are an advocate of individual sovereignty and the responsibilities that come with it yet you seem to be quick to cast aspersions on a group if it fits your needs.
pair of rogue former G-Men
Perhaps you can point to the part of the article that shows approval for this frame up came from up the line.
| A federal judge yesterday 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 yesterday. She called the government's argument that the FBI had no duty to get involved in the state case "absurd." |
And also perhaps you can show where the FBI has jurisdiction to interfere in a state murder case and especially in the after conviction appeals process.
| During the civil trial that led to the judgment, lawyers for Salvati, Limone and the others put into evidence hundreds of previously secret FBI memos showing that the innocence of the four men was widely known in the FBI and documented in written reports that repeatedly reached the office of then-Director J. Edgar Hoover. |
| Gertner, in her decision, said two former FBI agents, Dennis Condon and H. Paul Rico, actively solicited the perjured testimony from Barboza that led directly to the convictions of the four plaintiffs in the wrongful imprisonment suit. But she also spread the blame over the FBI as an institution. "The FBI agents `handling' Barboza ... and their superiors - all the way up to the FBI Director - knew that Barboza would perjure himself," Gertner wrote. "They knew this because Barboza, a killer many times over, had told them so - directly and indirectly. Barboza's testimony about the plaintiffs contradicted every shred of evidence in the FBI's possession at the time - and the FBI had extraordinary information. |
| However, materials presented to Gertner during the trial showed that although the four were prosecuted in state court, the only significant evidence against them was Barboza's perjured testimony. And the state prosecutor testified that Barboza was delivered to him by the FBI. |
But as I said before, this is a prime example of what happens when law enforcement decides that catching the bad guys is their goal rather than the only legitimate goal for law enforcement, protecting people's rights.
I disagree. I think the courts are charged with protecting peoples rights. The law enforcement guys take their leads from them.
A prime example is Miranda.
So, are you suggesting that the FBI has no duty to provide evidence of someone's innocence of a crime unless the Supreme Court decides it? Are you in favor of people being falsely charged and incarcerated as "collateral damage" in the course of the FBI or other law enforcement activities?
I am suggesting the FBI's role in the scheme of things is far different than the ACLU's .
I am suggesting a soldiers lot is much different than a Red Cross worker.
I am also suggesting that the FBI does not necessarily live in a Pollyanna land, they make real time life or death decisions in a world that is not black and white. Does that excuse it, no. Does it Get Rico and company off the hook? No.
But it does paint a bigger picture than the one you want to paint.
I don't think government as a whole is bad. I think it is as good as the people who staff it.
If the FBI failed, you failed, I failed, the whole friggin country failed.
I am arguing that what the FBI did was wrong.
This is why a 17-year-old who gets caught having consensual sex with a 15-year-old can end up as a registered sex offender.
And i am arguing that certain agents did wrong. Simple as that. You are damning the entire organization.You say the FBI I say Rico and Condon. See the friggin difference.
And if you see that as BS , too bad.
To damn law enforcement for doing their jobs doesn't make sense.
I am criticizing the agency because the leadership of that agency signed off on framing four men for murder
Agency leadership signed off on a coverup at the worst. Unless you have a smoking gun where they ordered Rico and Condon to shift focus of the case to protect their informant.
the FBI leadership deliberately hiding evidence that prove the four men were not guilty of the crime
You seem so interested in excusing this wrongful imprisonment
QuoteYou seem so interested in excusing this wrongful imprisonment
Where have i excused the actions of Rico and Condon.
I am simply objecting to your blanket condemnation of the FBI, and though you protest heavily you continue to name the FBI as the object of your displeasure.
'll try this again. I'm saying I don't have much trust for the FBI as an agency, not that I think all members of the FBI are lying cheats. See the frakkin' difference? Well do ya?
You are damning the organization ( I don't have much trust for the FBI as an agency) because of the actions of SOME members even though you are oh so friggin careful to say all are not lying cheats, you still blame the whole organization.
You're apparently having trouble considering the FBI as an agency rather than as merely a collection of people.
So I'm sorry you refuse to understand my position
| "FBI officials up the line allowed their employees to break laws, violate rules, and ruin lives, interrupted only with the occasional burst of applause," said Gertner, berating the FBI for giving commendations and bonuses to the agents who helped send the men to prison for the killing in Chelsea of Edward "Teddy" Deegan, a small-time hoodlum. |
| Also playing into the decision to ignore the homicides, according to law enforcers, was the fact that it was primarily Mexican drug dealers who were being murdered. The sources contend that made it easier for some within law-enforcement to rationalize the deaths in pursuit of the prize at the end of the game. Honest law enforcers worry that an ?institutionalized racism? in U.S. enforcement agencies, a problem that law enforcers have tried to blow the whistle on for years, along the border has now led to officially sanctioned murders. |
m not sure how I missed seeing that before. Commendations and bonuses. Commendations and frakin' bonuses? Wow.
Were the commendations and bonuses for setting up the men?
How that matters, I don't know
I don't see the relevance of your complaint about commendations if it didn't concern the frameup.
Nor do i see the relevance of the judge mentioning it.
What was that you were saying about not excusing the agents actions? You certainly seem okay with the FBI excusing them.
what happens to the agents that might be guilty of a crime?
What about the supervision and leadership that they should have had?
Your argument that the commendations might not not have been given by superiors who knew what agents Rico and Condon were doing strikes me as ridiculous.
Which leads me back to the questions you ignored. What is your opinion of what agents Rico and Condon did to Greco, Limone, Tameleo and Salvati? And what do you think should have happened to agents Rico and Condon as a result?
No more ridiculous than your assertion that the commendations and wards were for the frame up.
What's that? You didn't say that. Judging replies in this thread, that doesn't matter.
QuoteWhich leads me back to the questions you ignored. What is your opinion of what agents Rico and Condon did to Greco, Limone, Tameleo and Salvati? And what do you think should have happened to agents Rico and Condon as a result?
Answered in post 12, 14 and by inclusion my statement regarding the statutes of limitations concerning wrongful prosecution which would cover Rico, Ciondon and the higher ups who knew about and helped cover up the frame up.
But I'm glad to see you think someone should have been charged in this case, though your comment in that regard seems severely mitigated by your other comments in defense of the FBI.
I don't recall having said the whole of the FBI should be punished. I don't recall reading where the judge said that either. But then, I think you're still trying to equate the agency with the total number of employees.
Let's look at the case closely. Mafia kingpins were unjustly accused of a murder they did not commit.
The Federal Government was penalized for a crime they did not commit, individuals employed by the federal government did the deed and others covered it up.
Why the outrage at one case and not the other?
Two or three of the men, as I recall, had ties to the Mafia, at least one did not, but none of them were kingpins.
Actually my point was that it would be helpful to have some background about the wrongly accused.
No different approach than your decrying commendations for the works of Rico and company for activities that very probably had nothing to do with Rico.
Commendations for Rico that had nothing to do with Rico? Okay, at this point, you're just babbling.
What I meant was Tameleo et al.
Well, the problem with the FBI agents getting commendations and bonuses was that they were being rewarded when they should no longer have been on the payroll to in the first place.
And I want to know why I should believe the agents got commendations and bonuses from someone who did not know what the agents had done. Without some reason to believe that, your objection makes no sense.
Do you think the judgement against the FBI as a whole was a bad idea?QuoteAnd I want to know why I should believe the agents got commendations and bonuses from someone who did not know what the agents had done. Without some reason to believe that, your objection makes no sense.
A good reason to believe would be the very nature and definition of a coverup. And that is to limit widespread knowledge of the subject to a select few.
Not only is it possible but it is highly plausible that those doing the commendations and awards were not part of the loop in the Tameleo saga.
Since the agents' superiors did know, the question is then from whom would the agents have received commendations?
A good reason to believe would be the very nature and definition of a coverup. And that is to limit widespread knowledge of the subject to a select few.
| During the civil trial that led to the judgment, lawyers for Salvati, Limone and the others put into evidence hundreds of previously secret FBI memos showing that the innocence of the four men was widely known in the FBI and documented in written reports that repeatedly reached the office of then-Director J. Edgar Hoover. |
Are you saying they had the same superiors their entire career? Highly unlikely.
According to reports in this thread the revelation that superiors were aware of this was not discovered by perusing personnel files but by searching memos and interoffice correspondence unearthed by FOIA requests.
It would be silly to claim a coverup of items listed in personnel jackets.
It would be silly to assume that any new supervisors the agents had would be completely ignorant of the cases on which the agents had worked.
. Which means that those who did know about the case, whoever they were, did nothing to stop the agents from being rewarded.
Best you can come up with is they should have known. Not that they did know.
And then you say those involved in a criminal coverup should have stepped up and implicated themselves by objecting to run of the mill commendations and awards. I don't see that happening.
You seem to be using the old misstate my arguments and then attack them technique of discussion.
Where did i ever say the Rico and Condon were above criticism?
I will await patiently your proof.
and you seem to object to any further criticism of the agents or the FBI.
I don't see any evidence in any of my posts that would give the impression that I SEEM to object to criticism of Rico or Condon.
The named individuals involved should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,k even J Edgar if one can be prosecuted post posthumously.
Here's what I said, "you seem to object to any further criticism of the agents or the FBI." Do you see the difference yet?Quote
I certainly object to broad brush criticism of the agency, i don't object to criticism current or further of those named agents who took part in the coverup and the framing.
Certainly even you can see that difference.
i don't object to criticism current or further of those named agents who took part in the coverup and the framing.