U.S. ordered to pay $101 million for framing 4 men

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http://iht.com/articles/2007/07/26/america/26award.php

U.S. ordered to pay $101 million for framing 4 men
By Pam Belluck
Published: July 26, 2007

BOSTON: In what appears to be the largest sum of money ever awarded to people who were wrongfully convicted, a judge on Thursday ordered the U.S. government to pay $101.8 million to make amends for framing four men for a murder they did not commit.

Two of the men died in prison after being falsely convicted in the 1965 gangland murder. Another, Peter Limone, spent 33 years in jail before he was exonerated in 2001. The fourth, Joseph Salvati, spent 29 years in prison.

"It took 30 years to uncover this injustice," Judge Nancy Gertner of the U.S. District Court in Boston said in announcing her decision. She said the case was about "the framing of innocent men," adding that "FBI officials allowed their employees up the line to ruin lives."

The men were exonerated after the discovery of secret FBI memos that were never turned over to state prosecutors or defense lawyers during the trial in 1968. The memos indicated that the government's key witness, a hit man for the mob named Joseph "The Animal" Barboza, had lied when he said the four men had killed the victim, a low-level mobster, Edward Deegan, known as Teddy.

Barboza's motivation was to protect the real killer, and FBI officials went along, the memos suggested, because Barboza had been helping them solve cases and because the killer, Vincent Flemmi, was an FBI informant.
A Justice Department lawyer, Bridget Bailey Lipscomb, declined immediate comment on the ruling.