ex-FBI Agent Connolly Guilty of Murder

I loved this complicated case when we discussed it before, but in today's report on CNN I learned that the movie The Departed was based upon it. I shouldn't be surprised because that was one complex screenplay.

The story that unfolded over the past two months in a Miami courtroom spanned more than two decades of Boston's underworld, a tale that has already spawned several books and was the basis for the 2006 Martin Scorcese film "The Departed." Matt Damon played a crooked Connolly-like law enforcement officer and Jack Nicholson was the Bulger-esque Irish-American mobster.

John Connolly has already been serving a 10-year sentence for racketeering because of his relationship with Bulger, including a 1995 tip that enabled Bulger to escape arrest and begin a life on the run that continues to this day. Bulger is one of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" fugitives.

Today's conviction is for Second-degree murder because Connolly supplied confidential information to the Boston mob that led to the assassination of World Jai-Alai owner John Callahan in 1982. The trigger man in that incident John Martorano testified against Connolly.

"John Connolly swore an oath to the FBI and the United States of America," said prosecutor Michael Von Zamft. "He gave up that public trust because he decided he would rather be a gangster than an FBI agent."

Martorano cut a deal with prosecutors by agreeing to testify against Connolly, and spent 12 years in prison after admitting to 20 murders, including the killings of Wheeler and Callahan. Martorano is now a free man.

In my opinion, these men are the worst of the worst. Cold blooded killers who do their murders for profit should be considered far worse than the violent deranged men who so often make the headlines.

What do you think? Isn't there something wrong with giving Skyler Deleon and Joseph Edward Duncan III the death penalty and letting Martorano out after 12 years?

Nevertheless, these gangsters sure do make for some good movies.

"When you decide to be something you can be it. That's what they don't tell you in the Church. When I was your age they would say we could become cops or criminals. Today what I'm saying to you is this, when you're facing a loaded gun, what difference does it make?"