By Steve Neavling
John “Zip” Connolly, the disgraced FBI agent with ties to mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, has failed to clear his name.
Connolly had requested “post conviction relief” from his second-degree murder conviction.
The 3rd District Court of Appeals in Florida denied Connolly’s request, the Boston Herald reports.
Connolly, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison, is free of jail indefinitely on a medical release.
Connolly’s lawyer Peter Mullane said the former agents wants to rebuild his reputation.
“The decision is moot in a street sense, but not moot for John who wants to clear his name,” Mullane told the Herald. “He’s totally and completely innocent.”
In a motion, Connolly argued that Florida “violated his due process rights by failing to disclose” witness testimony that he claims would have cleared him.
He alas said the FBI hired him in 1968 to cultivate “certain government informants, including James J. ‘Whitey’ Bulger and Stephen ‘the Rifleman’ Flemmi, two notorious members of a rival criminal organization, the Winter Hill Gang.”
His mission, he said, was “to infiltrate the La Cosa Nostra, an organized crime syndicate responsible for a myriad of murders in the Boston area.”
In his motion, Mullane said Connolly’s case failed to include key testimony from Robert Fitzpatrick, a former assistant special agent in charge of the bureau’s Boston Field Office.
“Fitzpatrick attested he informed (a colleague) that Connolly was sequestered from the (incriminating) investigation because, during that time, he was pursuing a graduate degree at Harvard University,” the motion states.
The Florida appeals court wasn’t swayed and “affirmed” Connolly’s conviction.
