Disgraced FBI agent John Connolly seeks compassionate release from prison

BOSTON — John Connolly was once a huge star with the Boston FBI office.

But his association with South Boston Mob Boss James “Whitey” Bulger and Steven “The Rifleman” Flemmi not only brought him crashing down to earth, it sent him to a Florida prison for 40 years.

And now, not even halfway through his sentence, lawyers are working to get Connolly a “compassionate release.”

John Connolly was convicted of second-degree murder for the 1982 mob hit of former World Jai Alai President John Callahan.

Callahan was found shot to death in the trunk of a car parked at Miami Airport.

At Whitey Bulger’s trial, hitman John Martorano testified he pulled the trigger, even though the two were friends. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” Martorano famously quipped when asked how he could kill one of his best friends.

Prosecutors say Bulger ordered Callahan’s hit because John Connolly told him Callahan might tell the feds about the Bulger gang’s involvement in another mob hit, the murder of businessman Roger Wheeler in 1981.

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Lawyers are petitioning the Miami-Dade County Circuit Courts for compassionate release, arguing the 79-year-old Connolly is no threat to the public and his medical conditions make it necessary to protect him from the coronavirus epidemic.

The Miami Herald is reporting that Connolly could be released to his brother, and could live on home confinement at his brother’s Florida home.

John Callahan’s widow, Mary Callahan, said Thursday she is against any early release of John Connolly.

“That would be a very nice thing for him and his family,” Mary Callahan said. “But I don’t know about me and my family. What do we get?”

Steven Davis, brother of Bulger and Flemmi victim, Debbie Davis was outraged at the thought of Connolly’s release.

“He should do his time. And the government should make him do his time for these murders,” Davis said.

News of Connolly’s attempt to get compassionate release seemed to spread quickly through New England’s Underworld.

Former New England Mafia boss Frank Salemme said in a statement through his attorney Steven Boozang, “As despicable and corrupt an FBI Agent as John Connolly was, at least he has done his time. He didn’t try to get his time reduced like others who threw people under the bus, and couldn’t do 60 days in the House of Correction.”

Salemme is referring to one of the mobsters who testified against him at his recent federal Boston murder trial.

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What are the chances that John Connolly will be released?

Boston attorney Brad Bailey thinks Connolly faces a steep climb, that his notorious past will be a problem.

“They are going to have to combat the fact that this is murder two, somebody died. Plus you’re going to have to combat the fact he was sentenced to forty years. And he’s not even at the fifty percent mark on having served that sentence. Those are big push back factors,” Bailey said.

No hearing date for John Connolly has yet been set.

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