Pubdate: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 Source: Boston Globe (MA) Copyright: 2001 Globe Newspaper Company Contact: P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378 Feedback: http://extranet.globe.com/LettersEditor/default.asp Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/ Author: Shelley Murphy and Ralph Ranalli US TIGHTENS RULES ON INFORMANTS Changes Follow Furor Over FBI Mob Dealings Tough new Justice Department guidelines designed to prevent the cozy camaraderie that led to criminal charges against the star FBI agent who handled gangsters James ''Whitey'' Bulger and Stephen Flemmi will be put in place as early as today. The national guidelines, developed in the wake of federal court hearings in Boston throughout 1998 that exposed the controversial relationship between the FBI and Bulger and Flemmi - who are charged with killing 19 and 10 people respectively while working as FBI informants - will for the first time require the bureau to share information on informants with other agencies, including federal prosecutors. The FBI has had a longstanding policy of protecting its informants by shielding their identities from outside agencies. The guidelines, drafted over the past two years, will require the FBI, the US Drug Enforcement Administration, and all other Justice Department agencies to report suspected, unauthorized criminal activity by informants to prosecutors and alert federal prosecutors when the target of a federal criminal probe is an informant, according to US Attorney Donald K. Stern. The new rules also prohibit agents from socializing with or exchanging gifts with informants - an apparent reaction to the revelation that FBI agents in Boston routinely dined with Bulger and Flemmi and swapped Christmas presents. US District Judge Mark L. Wolf held lengthy hearings during 1998 after Flemmi claimed that the FBI had given him and Bulger permission to commit any crime, short of murder, in exchange for information about their rivals in the New England Mafia. He found that Flemmi and Bulger had not been promised immunity from prosecution by the FBI. Bulger and Flemmi, members of Somerville's defunct Winter Hill Gang who later formed their own criminal empire, had been targeted by numerous federal and state investigators throughout the 1980s and 1990s. But the FBI didn't alert federal prosecutors that Bulger and Flemmi were longtime informants until the eve of their January 1995 indictment on federal racketeering charges, along with then New England Mafia boss Francis ''Cadillac Frank'' Salemme and a number of other defendants. During a brief telephone interview yesterday, US Attorney General Janet Reno credited Stern with helping to revamp older guidelines. She said the new ones were likely to be adopted today. ''I think what's key here is there will be greater accountability,'' said Stern, who served on an adhoc committee with several other prosecutors from around the country and met with officials from the FBI, the DEA and other law enforcement agencies to discuss the handling of informants. ''An informant program that has integrity and accountability is critical for law enforcement,'' said Stern. ''So I consider these changes to be absolutely necessary to provide that and to ensure that the public has confidence in law enforcement. ''I should not have learned about [Bulger and Flemmmi's work as FBI informants] days before the indictment,'' Stern said. ''That's not the way to run the railroad.'' Retired FBI Special Agent John Connolly Jr., the longtime handler of Bulger and Flemmi, was charged last year with tipping off the pair to the identity of two other FBI informants and a potential witness against them, prompting Bulger and Flemmi to allegedly kill the three men. Connolly is also accused of warning Bulger to flee on the eve of the 1995 indictment. Bulger, 71, has been a fugitive since then and is now on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. The bureau is offering $1 million for his capture. Flemmi, 66, has been jailed for six years awaiting trial. Last September, Bulger and Flemmi faced an avalanche of new charges, including allegations that Bulger killed 19 people and Flemmi killed 10. Attorney Anthony Cardinale, who represents Salemme, said of the new informant guidelines, ''I think we established without any question that the informant program as it was practiced in Boston relating to organized crime investigations was simply itself a crime. What the public has to realize is that this is a problem that's nationwide.'' Attorney Martin Weinberg, who represented hitman-turned-government witness John Martorano during the hearings, characterized the new guidelines as ''the most enduring and most significant consequence of the hearings.'' Weinberg added, ''The litmus test of the future success of the guidelines will depend on the extent to which decisions are made not by the FBI, but instead by disinterested Justice Department lawyers, because the history of the last 30 years demonstrates the FBI cannot be trusted to police itself.'' The full text of the guidelines, which are more than 40 pages long, is expected to be made public today. The new guidelines were the topic of intense bargaining by the Justice Department and the investigative agencies, chiefly the FBI, officials familiar with the process said. A key sticking point was whether Justice Department prosecutors would have the authority to monitor and supervise the relationships between agents and informants. Some prosecutors believed that a fundamental problem with the old system was that it relied almost entirely on the FBI to voluntarily report problems, and that there needed to be more checks and balances in the way informants are handled. The new guidelines provide an apparent compromise, requiring periodic involvement by prosecutors, but not day-to-day supervision. Under a so-called ''sunset'' provision in the new guidelines, agents will be required after a certain period of time to justify their continued use of their informants to Justice Department prosecutors, or the relationship will automatically terminate. The framers of the new guidelines pointed to the FBI's 20-year relationship with Bulger and its 30-year relationship with Flemmi as examples of the sort of prolonged arrangements that can breed problems. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake