FBI cover-up costs $101 million

WASHINGTON – A federal judge in Boston Thursday ordered the government to pay a record $101 million for the FBI’s role in the 1968 wrongful murder convictions of four men and powerfully condemned misconduct that she said ran “all the way up to the FBI director.”

U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner’s scathing ruling runs for more than 200 pages, calling the charges leveled against the nation’s law enforcement agency “shocking” and the government’s defense “absurd.”

“Now is the time to say and say without equivocation: this ‘cost’ – to the liberty of four men, to our system of justice – is not remotely acceptable,” Gertner wrote in explaining the award. “This case is about intentional misconduct, subornation of perjury, conspiracy, the framing of innocent men.”

Gertner said the FBI knew that the star witness in a murder trial – a “top echelon” informant in the agency’s war against La Cosa Nostra, the Italian Mafia – was lying when he identified the four wrongfully convicted men as responsible for a 1965 gangland slaying. But Gertner said agents vouched for the witness’s credibility and for years covered up the lie as the men attempted to prove their innocence.

“The FBI’s conduct was intentional, it was outrageous, it caused plaintiffs immeasurable and unbearable pain and the FBI must be held accountable,” Gertner wrote.