John Connolly, Former FBI Agent, Gets 40 Years in Prison for Role in Mob Hit

A judge sentenced a rogue FBI agent to 40 years in prison on Thursday for the 1982 mob-related killing of a witness who was about to testify against Boston mob members, court officials said.

Disgraced ex-FBI agent John Connolly Jr. "crossed over to the dark side," said Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Stanford Blake. The sentence will run consecutively to a 10-year racketeering sentence.

Connolly, 68, was convicted in November of second-degree murder in the death of businessman John Callahan, an executive with World Jai-Alai. Callahan's bullet-riddled body was found in the trunk of a Cadillac parked at Miami International Airport.

Connolly's fall from celebrated mob-buster to paid gangland flunky captivated a South Florida courtroom for weeks. In testimony at his sentencing hearing last month, he denied having any role in Callahan's death.

"It's heartbreaking to hear what happened to your father and to your husband," he told members of Callahan's family. "My heart is broken when I hear what you say."

He explained, in the face of vigorous cross-examination, that rubbing elbows with killers and gangsters and winning their confidence was part of his job. His attorney argued that Connolly did what the FBI wanted him to do, and now was being held responsible.

Connolly did not testify at his trial.

Prosecutors had asked that Connolly be given a life sentence, saying the 30-year minimum was not enough because Connolly abused his badge.

In a Boston Globe interview published last month, however, Connolly vigorously denied being a corrupt agent. "I did not commit these crimes I was charged with," Connolly told the newspaper. "I never sold my badge. I never took anybody's money. I never caused anybody to be hurt, at least not knowingly, and I never would."

During his two-month trial, jurors heard that Connolly told his mob connections that Callahan, 45, was a potential witness against them, setting him up for the gangland-style slaying.

According to testimony, Connolly was absorbed by the very gangsters he was supposed to be targeting -- members of South Boston's notorious Winter Hill gang. His story was said to be the inspiration for the character played by Matt Damon in the 2006 Martin Scorsese movie, "The Departed."

Connolly's tale was closely followed in New England, where he grew up in Boston's "Southie" neighborhood, the same area long dominated by the Winter Hill gang and its notorious leader, James "Whitey" Bulger. Sought in 19 slayings, Bulger is the FBI's second most-wanted fugitive.

During the first two decades of his FBI career, Connolly won kudos in the bureau's Boston office, cultivating informants against New England mobsters. Prosecutors said Connolly was corrupted by his two highest-ranking snitches: Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi.

Connolly retired from the FBI in 1990 and later was indicted on federal racketeering and other charges stemming from his long relationship with Bulger and Flemmi. He was convicted of racketeering in 2002 and was serving a 10-year federal prison sentence when he was indicted in 2005 in the Callahan slaying.

During testimony, jurors heard that Connolly was on the mob payroll, collecting $235,000 from Bulger and Flemmi while shielding his mob pals from prosecution and leaking the identities of informants.

The prosecution's star witnesses at the Miami trial were Flemmi, who is now in prison, and mob hit man John Martorano, who has admitted to 20 murders, served 12 years in prison and is now free.

Callahan, who often socialized with gangsters, had asked the gang to execute Oklahoma businessman Roger Wheeler over a business dispute, according to testimony. Martorano killed Wheeler in 1981 on a golf course, shooting him once between the eyes, prosecutors said.

After Connolly told Bulger and Flemmi that Callahan was going to implicate them in the slaying, Martorano was sent to do away with Callahan, prosecutors said. But one star witness did not testify -- the former FBI agent who inspired the 1997 film "Donnie Brasco." He refused to take the stand after the judge denied his request to testify anonymously.

Thanks to Rich Phillips

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Junior Gotti Witness, John Alite, Targeted in Planned Hit

Mobsters ordered the murder of a witness against John A. (Junior) Gotti days after he was indicted for three gangland slayings, prosecutors revealed Friday.

The contract on Gotti childhood pal John Alite circulated through a Florida prison in a handwritten note last summer, Manhattan Assistant U.S. Attorney Elie Honig said in court papers.

Honig said the feds have no evidence linking Gotti, 44, to the plot, but they raised it in asking a judge to reject Gotti's efforts to be freed on bail awaiting trial.

"The government mentions the contract here simply to show the Gambino crime family has many loyal followers and supporters who are willing to use extreme measures to protect Gotti and others from prosecution," Honig wrote. "Throughout his life in the Mafia, a simple word from Gotti has been enough to order the commission of crimes, including violent attacks and murder. The same is true now."

Gotti's lawyer, Charles Carnesi, had a different view: "It was put in [the bail motion] to be inflammatory," he said. "Even they acknowledge he had nothing to do with it."

In September, Florida prosecutors said they had uncovered a jailhouse plot by the Latin Kings to kill an unidentified witness. That witness appears to be Alite.

The note written on a rag was addressed to the "Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation" and added, "the [terminate on sight] is in lockdown now. How iz u gunna get to him now?! We know hes locked up in Pine County. Pep in da street is payin good to get the job done. So finish that [terminate on sight] ASAP."

In a 2003 jailhouse chat intercepted by the feds, Gotti said he had become so tired of mob life that he wished he was a member of the notorious Hispanic street gang. "I'm ashamed of who I am," Gotti said. "I'd rather be a Latin King."

Prosecutors confirmed that Alite, who ran Gambino crime family operations in Tampa, will be taking the stand against his old pal. He pleaded guilty to two mob slayings and has been cooperating since February 2007.

Gotti is expected in New York next week following a Florida judge's order transferring the case to Manhattan Federal Court. He's being held in an Atlanta federal lockup.

Gotti is scheduled to appear in Manhattan Federal Court on Thursday.

Thanks to Thomas Zambito

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"Tony Roach" Petitions to Exterminate the Rest of His Prison Sentence

The Roach just won't go away.

Anthony (Tony Roach) Rampino, a notorious hit man for late Gambino crime boss John Gotti, is getting a second shot at beating his 25-to-life sentence for heroin trafficking.

The reputed killer will appear in Manhattan Supreme Court on Jan. 29 for resentencing after a state appeals court overruled a judge who had rejected his bid for a reduced sentence.

Having served 10 years, Rampino conceivably could walk out a free man if Justice Arlene Goldberg gives him time served. Law enforcement officials say that would be a travesty of justice.

The Roach was more exterminator than pest for the Gambino crime family back in the day. Rampino was a backup shooter in the 1985 assassination of then-Gambino boss Paul Castellano outside Sparks Steakhouse in midtown, cops say.

He's also been fingered as a member of the hit team that murdered Gotti's neighbor John Favara in 1980 after Favara killed Gotti's young son in a traffic accident.

"He's a hard-core associate of organized crime," said Mark Feldman, a former federal prosecutor who supervised the 1987 narcotics case against Rampino for the Brooklyn district attorney's office. "He's as Mafia as a guy gets without being a made member,'" said Feldman, a managing director for BDO Consulting.

Rampino lived above Gotti's Bergin Hunt & Fish Club in Ozone Park. He was never inducted into the Mafia because of his heavy drug use. He reportedly earned the nickname 'The Roach' because he smoked every bit of a marijuana joint.

Federal prosecutors did not charge him with the Castellano or Favara murders because he was serving a life sentence for selling a kilo of cocaine to an undercover cop.

Although Rampino never appealed his conviction, he filed a petition seeking a reduced sentence in 2004 after state lawmakers overturned severe drug terms known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws.

Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said the revised penalties are not intended for thugs like Rampino. "Rampino's sentence reflected who he was and the violence he was involved in," Brennan said.

Even behind bars Rampino has been incorrigible, losing more than 500 days of "good time" for misbehavior.

Thanks to John Marzulli

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