Retired State Trooper Recalls Whitey Bulger Wiretaps, Investigation

Arthur Bourque of Lynnfield, the current town moderator and a former selectman, has more reasons than many people to follow the ongoing Whitey Bulger trial.

In the 1980s, the retired Massachusetts State Trooper was a member of the major crimes unit working to bring down Bulger's Winter Hill gang through constant surveillance, wiretapping, and even a break-in at the gang's Lancaster Street Garage headquarters to plant electronic bugs. What the unit had no way of knowing at the time was that their investigation was compromised by Bulger's own informants.

In a recent conversation with Lynnfield Patch, Bourque talked extensively about his law enforcement career, which began in 1971 when he joined the Mass. State Police at the age of 21. Later, he went on to found Surveillance Specialties, Ltd. and has served as a selectman, youth soccer coach, and as the current town moderator in Lynnfield.

When Bourque moved from patrol to the major crimes unit in 1977, Bulger was still a couple of years away from replacing Howie Winter as leader of the Winter Hill Gang. As Bulger's criminal empire grew in the '80s, he increasingly had the attention of state police organized crime investigators. Bourque said that back then, the state police would report on organized crime investigations to the U.S. attorney's office.

The U.S. attorney was also bringing in FBI investigators, including John Morris and John Connolly - the disgraced former agent and Bulger informer who once lived in Lynnfield himself. More about Connolly can be found in this 2011 article from Lynnfield Patch. Bourque said that at time, the FBI agents were receiving daily updates on the Bulger investigation - and he remembers that even though Connolly was highly regarded for his other organized crime arrests, he was also something of an arrogant character with a taste for cufflinks and Brooks Brothers suits.

"When looking back, it's like looking into a crystal ball," said Bourque.

Planting Bugs at Bulger's Headquarters

Bourque, a lifelong Lynnfield resident, actually placed bugs with his colleagues in two different places used by Bulger and his associates - and in both cases the gang was mysteriously tipped off almost immediately.

The first Bulger hangout targeted by the State Police team was the Lancaster Street Garage. In that era, he said that wiretapping was relatively easy, and there was even a mock telephone truck, complete with hardhats, when needed. However, the audio bugging equipment was a different story. Unit members had to break into Bulger's headquarters one night not knowing who or what they might find. "I want to tell you my heart wasn't beating fast," said Bourque, adding that "The biggest concern was getting caught and compromising the case." While law enforcement was watching Bulger at that time, he also had his own constant lookouts in the neighborhood.

However, this was not going to be the problem confronting the state police. Bourque recalls two occasions where perfectly operational electronic bugs were planted around 1 a.m., and by 9 a.m., he said they were rendered useless by a different electronic device apparently operating at the exact same frequency as the bugs, creating interference in the process. For their second attempt to bug Bulger's garage, more advanced technology was used - and a similar thing happened.

"We knew we had been burned but we didn't know how," said Bourque, adding that he also knew the investigation was compromised when one of the only bits of audio they did gather turned out to be when Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi walked in to the garage talking only about how funny they thought Ernie and Bert were on "Sesame Street." The gang never used the garage again after that. 

Bourque also said he did not know for sure if it was Connolly who specifically provided Bulger in these instances with the information about electronic surveillance by the state police.

Bulger Sets Up Shop at HoJo's

State Police made another attempt to record Bulger a while later when they discovered his gang was using a row of five payphones at the Dorchester Howard Johnson's to conduct their business. Surveillance at a public payphone was a trickier matter from both a law enforcement and from a legal matter, said Bourque, but a court order was obtained after about a month of building up probable cause. Gang members reportedly made dozens of calls a day from the row of phones and were even known to shoo away restaurant customers looking to make a call. The police rented a room to conduct surveillance from, but their stay at the HoJo's was short-lived - the day after the wiretaps went live, the gang never returned to the restaurant again. From there, Bulger apparently adopted his tactic of walking with associates in parks and other places where electronic surveillance was impractical.

Years Later, Some Satisfaction

Looking back at that time, Bourque said that one troubling aspect is that if the electronic bugging operations had not been compromised, Bulger and his gang could have been brought down before they had a chance to go on to commit a number of other murders. Looking at the John Connolly case, he said that as a retired law enforcement professional, he is particularly troubled by the idea that somebody in that field would allow a murder to occur in the first place. "It's the one case that has always bothered me," said Bourque, who spent about two years in total investigating the Bulger gang.

With these things in mind, in 2009 Bourque and four former state police team members traveled to Miami to see Connolly sentenced to 40 years in prison in connection with a 1982 organized crime murder. He recalled how Connolly shuffled into the courtroom in his prison jumpsuit, and looked away in shame upon seeing them. Witnessing the Connolly sentencing, he said, "was very, very soothing to the soul."

"For me, it was more about corrupt law enforcement," said Bourque. "These were the guys that compromised the integrity of the badge."