Ex-FBI Agent Sentenced to 40 Years in '82 Murder, But May Win On Appeal
A former FBI agent was sentenced today to 40 years in prison after being convicted last year of second-degree murder for telling gangsters about an agency tipster who was subsequently slain in South Florida by a hit man.
However, there is a good chance that 68-year-old John Connolly Jr. will soon be free on procedural grounds, reports the Boston Globe.
“Before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Stanford Blake handed down the sentence, he made it clear that he did not believe Connolly’s second-degree murder conviction would stand,” the newspaper writes. “Blake acknowledged that defense lawyers were correct that the statute of limitations had expired, although he rejected a defense motion to set aside the verdict because it was filed too late.”
The government contends that the four-year statute of limitations in Florida, at the time, for second-degree murder didn’t apply. That’s because a gun was carried during the commission of the crime, putting it into a category for which no prosecution deadline applies, explains a Miami Herald article about the sentencing.
But the simple fact that Connolly, as an FBI agent, was wearing his service weapon when he allegedly tipped gangsters about the soon-to-be murder victim, John Callahan, isn’t sufficient to invoke the exception, says defense attorney Manny Casabielle. “It’s crystal clear—you have to be either carrying or using a gun during a commission of the crime, not three weeks before in a different state.”
Connolly, who was a star agent in the FBI’s office in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s, allegedly tipped gangsters in the Northeast after Callahan went to his office with information about an earlier murder. Connolly is accused of becoming corrupted and befriending gangsters there; however, the defense contends that he was just doing his job as an FBI agent and using gangsters as informants to decimate the New England Mafia.
Additional details about the case against Connolly are discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post.
Hat tip: On Deadline.
