Gardner Museum Heist —Blog
This is a copy of a comment I made today on the Boston Globe's web page, in an article by Shelley Murphy about
a recently released "manuscript" by Whitey Bulger. "Bulger wrote that Connolly was 'the sacrificial lamb'
for wrongdoing by a former FBI supervisor, John Morris, who testified at the trials of Connolly and Bulger under a grant of immunity from prosecution."
The comment lasted a good six hours before it was "blocked." It happens. There are bigger problems in the world.
I don't agree with Bulger's theory about why the feds prosecuted Connolly, which seems to be that Bulger's corruption of the FBI demanded a sacrifice
for public consumption, and that the government decided Connolly was a suitable scape goat. Bulger has no way of knowing what the motivations were
of the people in charge at the DOJ at that point, any more than anyone else. Connolly helped eradicate the Mafia as ciminal force in New England for a generation.
The Mafia is an institution that is hundreds of years old.
It is bigger than any one individual or handful of individuals. Bulger's gang and the Winter Hill Gang were not. By making the Mafia compete on an unlevel
playing field agains the likes of Whitey Bulger was quite an accomplishment, and Connolly deserves much of the credit for that, although that may or may not have
been his motivation.
In addition, the public long ago lost interest in the fate of John Connolly. He could have been freed an appeal years ago, and the public would have been satisfied, by decades in prison he had served. Yet the FBI persists. What is their big effing problem with John Connolly? It has to be something big. My comment today was basically a historical rundown of Connolly's relationship with his informant, Bulger, and the Boston Globe's coverage of it. A blog post I wrote five years ago called "Spinning Whitey Bulger's Grave," goes into some of the other details not mentioned in this comment.The only changes I made were to fix a couple of typos. (Okay I updated it, there are more changes than that now.) I also linked to the source documents, which I did not included in my comment. My comment on: "Whitey’ Bulger’s manuscript insists ex-FBI agent was ‘sacrificial lamb,'" by Shelley Murphy Boston Globe March 25, 2026 John Connolly retired in DECEMBER of 1990, as Shelly Murphy herself reported in 2000. "When Connolly retired in December 1990, the FBI dropped Bulger and Flemmis as informants and began targeting them." Shelley Murphy Boston Globe staff. November 12, 2000 The month matters. The Gardner heist was in March of 1990. In his book Master Thieves Kurkjian wrote that: "Disgraced FBI agent John Connolly, who had handled Bulger as an informant, said that even though he was retired from the Bureau when the theft took place, he was asked by his old colleagues to see what he could find out from Bulger." That contradicts Kurkjian's own reporting in the Boston Globe before his book came out: "In addition, former FBI agent John Connolly, who handled Bulger as an FBI informant, has written in letters to a reporter that after leaving the agency’s Boston office in 1990, [he didn't leave until nine months after the Gardner heist] his former bosses asked him to approach Bulger about the Gardner crime. Connolly said that Bulger told him that he did not know who had engineered the theft or where the artwork had been taken." Steve Kurkjian Boston Globe 2011/06/26 And after his book came out: "In early 1991, less than a year after the stunning heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, recently retired Boston FBI agent John Connolly got a phone call from one of his former bosses, asking for his help on the case." The Boston FBI, which was and still is in total control of the Gardner investigation, had run out of immediate leads. Connolly's former boss, according to a source close to Connolly, asked if he could reach out to James "Whitey" Bulger to gain his assistance." Steve Kurkjian WBUR October 31, 2018Why is the FBI sending RETIRED agents to talk to Bulger? Why didn't Connolly ask Bulger about the case when he was an agent and Bulger was an informant? Was there local pressure to do it and national pressure not to do it, and having a retired agent handle it was a possible solution? Art crime investigator FBI special agent Thomas McShane author of “Loot": "Another Boston agent was in tight with Bulger, who was actually a long-time FBI informant dating back to when he was a street punk. That extremely rare inside connection nonetheless failed to produce any worthwhile information." McShane continued: "I was starting to get a really bad feeling about what was going on - on both sides of the law. With such a wealth of informants, including a top mob boss, how come nobody knew anything about such a major theft? Where was the traditional "mob blessing" required to operate in someone's territory?" What about AFTER Bulger was captured, did they ask him about the Gardner heist then? “'Just because of who he is and what he knew about crimes and corruption in Boston over the years, the Gardner case has to be at the top of the list of other things that he gets asked about,' Donald K. Stern, former US attorney, who from 1993 to 2001 presided over the investigation into the Gardner theft as well as the hunt for Bulger, said." Boston Globe June 26, 2011. WRONG! NECN Mike Nikitas Interview of Special Agent in Charge (SAIC) of the Boston Division of the FBI Richard DesLauriers March 19, 2013 Nitkitas: Whitey Bulger got arrested a year and half ago have you ever talked to him about this, asked him whether he knows anything about it?DesLauriers: No. Nitkitas: You haven't? DesLauriers: No. Nitkitas: You think it wouldn't be worth doing that? DesLauriers: No. There's no connection to the Bulger investigation. Nitkitas: Does he? Maybe he knew of the theft? DesLauriers: There's no connection to the Bulger investigation. The Boston Globe article was called: "Whitey Bulger arrest may yield clues on Gardner heist," but the arrest can't yield clues if he isn't even asked, which as is generally the case with this so called "investigation" is the whole point. "Interestingly, Bulger's "attorneys have said Bulger was ready to negotiate giving up some information about the [stolen Gardner Museum] paintings in exchange for safer prison digs just weeks before he was murdered." —The Daily Beast July 3, 2019 That would be a pretty malicious and provably false lie if it were not true, but Bulger's lead attorney did not seem to suffer any consequences from it. Five years later Brennan was appointed as a special prosecutor by District Attorney Michael Morrissey in the Karen Reed case, while the Feds had an adjacent case going concurrently. A year earlier, The U.S. Attorney's Office begin investigating the actions of law enforcement in the case. That case was dismissed in 2025. It was too late for Bulger, to ahem "negotiate" with the government, since they had already painted a target on Whitey Bulger's back at his trial. On 5/23/21 Shelley Murphy in the Boston Globe reported that Whitey Bulger "had been publicly identified as a longtime FBI informant." When and by whom? Tipped off by FBI Supervisor John Morris, who later admitted to a corrupt relationship with Bulger, the Globe Spotlight team reported that Bulger was an informant, on September 20, 1988, but the FBI denied it. Then in 1997, the Globe reported that "Faced with an ultimatum from a US District judge -- the result of maneuvers by defense lawyers -- the FBI revealed its relationship with Bulger rather than jeopardize its case against several suspected crime bosses. The FBI acknowledged Bulger's role during a closed hearing Tuesday before US District Judge Mark L. Wolf. An order stemming from that hearing was made public yesterday." Boston Globe June 7, 1997 But the formerly very mindful, very demure feds at Bulger's trial in 2013 "introduced a 700-page document that suggests Bulger was an informant," CNN reported. The ‘document’ was his informant case file.” CNN 7/29/13 Why did the prosecution go to such great lengths to establish that Bulger was an informant, which isn't a crime?"It’s unclear what weight, if any, a judge will give to Bulger’s claim that Connolly was 'framed,'” the Boston Globe reports. The fact that it was withheld would seem to be a worthy legal point, but it seems that it may be put forth to help Connolly in the court of public opinion, in the same way that the government charging Bulger with being on their team, an informant, was designed to hurt Bulger in the court of penal opinion. Highlights from the John Connolly retirement party. We see Senate President William Bulger seated at a table with Connolly's brother at the 20 second mark. Soon Senate President William Bulger gets up and says: "Seneca said that loyalty is the holies good in the human heart. John Connolly is the personification of loyalty." The Senate President is quite knowledgeable about Connolly's loyalty it seems. Then, Dianne Kottmyer Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the New England Organized Crime Strike Force gets up and said:"John, they wanted me to say that that bottle came courtesy of South Boston liquors. But I wouldn't say that. Connolly replied replied: "There's no finer liquor store in the Commonwealth." Lots of laughter and applause. What's the joke? The Boston Globe reported on July 21, 1998 that the liquor store had been sold under duress "to Bulger's friend Kevin Weeks, at least on paper, without a hitch and was renamed the South Boston Liquor Mart. It immediately became a hangout for Bulger and Flemmi and that "soon, the FBI was patronizing Bulger's stores. A 1990 raid of the Liquor Mart by the DEA, the Suffolk County Organized crime squad and IRS uncovered a receipt indicating the FBI bought liquor at discount prices to give away at its annual Christmas party months earlier." "The receipt indicated that the liquor was purchased by agent Dick Baker, the party organizer. And a separate piece of notebook paper indicated who the agent was 'Dick Baker (friend of John Connolly).' Connolly does not deny the FBI bought liquor at the store but says the piece of paper with his name on it was planted,” the Globe reported. What happened to the Boston Globe? "I get the feeling that when you rely upon the FBI as a source then you lose your ability to tell the truth about that source...The continuing flow of information is dependent upon the continuation and maintenance of the good relationship. Once in bed with a government agency it's hard to crawl out." — Career Prosecutor, and former Deputy District Attorney for Norfolk County, Matt Connolly in the Patriot Ledger March 24, 2013by Kerry Joyce Copyright © 2026 All Rights Reserved
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