By The Boston Globe
Editorial Page
BOSTON — IT DOESN’T require world class investigators to figure out that the jig is up for the FBI in the case of four men framed by federal agents in the 1965 gangland murder of Edward Deegan in Chelsea. This week, a federal appeals court upheld a $101.7 million damage judgment awarded by a lower court.
The size of the 2007 award to the families of Peter Limone, Joseph Salvati, Louis Greco, and Henry Tameleo grabbed the attention of the appellate judges who found it at the “outer edge” of permissible awards.
But the court rightly wasn’t in the mood to split hairs in the wrongful conviction cases that exposed the FBI for deliberately withholding evidence of the four men’s innocence and covering up the injustice. Secret files would later reveal that Joseph “The Animal” Barboza had falsely implicated the four men while protecting one of the true killers, FBI informant Vincent Flemmi. Both men were darlings of the FBI for providing information against the Mafia.
The Justice Department could drag out this travesty by seeking an appeal to the full Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. But it only prolongs the pain of the families.
