This case is a major blemish on the Boston FBI, which has taken a major hit for its role in dealing with the mob and mobsters like Whitey Bulger. The government appears to have an uphill battle in reversing a lower court ruling.
By Shelley Murphy
Boston Globe
BOSTON — As he sat in a federal appeals courtroom yesterday listening to a government lawyer argue that the FBI was not to blame for the wrongful conviction that put him and three other men behind bars for decades, Joseph Salvati said it was like being subjected to “waterboarding” – the tactic used during some government interrogations.
“The torture goes on,” said the 76-year-old Salvati, who served 29 years and five months in prison for a 1965 gangland slaying in Chelsea while secret files that would later clear him remained buried at the FBI. “The federal government and the Justice Department has been torturing us for 40 years . . . they just don’t stop.”
His wife, Marie, who raised their four children while he was in prison and has remained by his side through every proceeding, said: “The FBI is still trying to make believe that they didn’t do anything wrong. They are still in denial.”
In July 2007, US District Judge Nancy Gertner found that the FBI was responsible for framing Salvati, Peter J. Limone, Louis Greco, and Henry Tameleo for the murder of Edward “Teddy” Deegan, a small-time criminal, and ordered the government to pay them a total of $101.7 million for the decades they had spent in prison.
