By April Drew

EMILY McIntyre, mother of the infamous IRA gunrunner John McIntyre, who was arrested during an unsuccessful arms smuggling operation aboard a Gloucester fishing boat, The Valhalla, was awarded $3.1 million by U.S. District Judge Reginald C. Lindsay on September 5.

Lindsay, who lead an 18-day bench trial in June, ordered the government to pay the money to Mrs. McIntyre, 77, whose son was missing for more than 15 years before his bones were recovered from a mounted mob grave next to the Southeast Expressway in Dorchester in January 2000.

Lindsay ruled that longtime FBI informants and mobsters, James “Whitey” Bulger and Stephan “The Rifleman” Flemmi, were accountable for the unlawful death of Quincy fisherman McIntyre.

Mrs. McIntyre’s lawyer, William Christie, told the Irish Voice that she “was gratified to find out what happened to her son after 20 years of searching. She was happy that the court held the FBI responsible.”

Mrs. McIntyre is requesting that former FBI agent John Connolly, along with five other individual agents, be held fiscally accountable also.

Connolly tipped off Bulger and Flemmi, that McIntyre was working against them, information that he knew would likely result in McIntyre’s murder.

About six weeks before his murder, McIntyre was cooperating with U.S. Customs in the investigation of Bugler and Flemmi’s partaking in the smuggling operation.

McIntyre, 32 at time of his death, was a son of professional spies and a member of Charlestown hood Joe Murray’s marijuana-smuggling crew.

On November 30, 1984, Bulger and partner Flemmi lured McIntyre to 799 East Third Street in South Boston. He was strapped to a chair in the kitchen and while a machine gun was put to his head, he was interrogated.

According to Flemmi’s testimony, they led McIntyre down to the basement and attempted to strangle him with a boat rope for two minutes. McIntyre pleaded with them to stop. They buried him in the basement after his teeth and tongue were pulled out.

In a 110-page conclusion, Judge Lindsay wrote, “He was terrified; he knew his tormentors indeed, and would likely succeed in accomplishing his murder. He had been an informant and he would pay the price typically by revealed informants.”

Lindsay established that the FBI failed to control Connolly and neglected to explore several allegations that mobsters Bulger and Flemmi were mixed up in several crimes over the decades.

“The FBI stuck its head in the sand when it came to the criminal activities of Bulger and Flemmi,” wrote Lindsay.

In Flemmi’s testimony in June he said that the FBI sheltered him and his Bulger from prosecution in exchange for information about the Mafia. The Bulger gang was known to have showered FBI agents with lavish gifts and cash to reinforce protection.

Flemmi is presently serving a life sentence for 10 killings, including McIntyre’s. This was part of the plea deal that saved him from the death penalty.

Connolly, 66, who retired from the FBI in 1990, is currently serving a nine-year sentence for racketeering. He was charged with protecting Bulger and Flemmi from prosecution and forewarning Bulger to flee prior to his 1995 racketeering indictment.

Connolly is to stand trial in Miami in March for charges of purportedly helping Bulger and Flemmi arrange the murder of John Callahan in 1982.

James Bulger, born on September 3, 1929, is a wanted fugitive and so-called leader of the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish American organized crime group working in the Boston area. He is currently a fugitive sought after by the FBI for racketeering, murder, money laundering and several other crimes.