BOSTON -- In what appears to be the largest sum ever awarded to people who were wrongfully convicted, a judge ordered the federal government yesterday to pay $101.8 million to make amends for framing four men for a murder they did not commit.
Two of the men died in prison after being falsely convicted in the 1965 gangland murder. Another, Peter Limone, spent 33 years in prison before he was exonerated in 2001. The fourth, Joseph Salvati, spent 29 years behind bars.
"It took 30 years to uncover this injustice," U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said in announcing her decision. She said the case was about "the framing of innocent men," adding that "FBI officials allowed their employees up the line to ruin lives."
The men were exonerated after the discovery of secret FBI memos that were not turned over to state prosecutors or defense lawyers during the trial in 1968. The memos indicated the government's key witness, Joseph "the Animal" Barboza, a mob hit man, lied when he said the four men killed Edward Deegan, a low-level mobster known as Teddy.
Barboza's motivation was to protect the real killer, and FBI officials went along, the memos suggested, because Barboza had been helping them solve cases and because the killer, Vincent Flemmi, was an FBI informant.
In her decision yesterday, Gertner strongly criticized the FBI and the argument made by Justice Department lawyers that federal authorities were not required to share information with state prosecutors and were not responsible for the results of a state prosecution.
"The government's position is, in a word, absurd," Gertner said.
A spokesman for the Justice Department, Charles Miller, said the government would review the judge's decision before deciding whether to appeal.
In their suit, the men had argued that Boston FBI agents knew that Barboza had lied when he named the men as killers in the 1965 killing. They said Barboza was protecting a fellow FBI informant, Flemmi, who was involved in the killing, according to the Associated Press.
The wrongly convicted men were treated as "acceptable collateral damage" because the FBI's priority then was taking down the Mafia, their lawyers said.
The judge awarded $26 million to Limone, $29 million to Salvati, $13 million to Tameleo's estate and $28 million to Greco's estate. Awards to the wives and children brought the total to $101.75.