Attorneys for former FBI agent John Connolly filed a motion Monday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court to vacate his conviction, armed with what they describe as a bombshell: an unfinished manuscript by James "Whitey" Bulger himself, along with FBI reports, that they say prosecutors sat on for years.

Connolly, now 85, was convicted in Florida of second-degree murder and racketeering in connection with the 1982 killing of businessman John Callahan. He spent years behind bars on a 40-year sentence before receiving compassionate release in 2021, after a judge cited terminal illness and COVID-19 risks.

His lawyers now argue the man who put Boston's most infamous gangster behind bars was, in fact, destroyed by the system he served.

As reported by Huffpost, the manuscript at the center of the filing was seized by the FBI during a search of Bulger's apartment after his 2011 arrest. It didn't reach Connolly's defense team until 2024, when Miami-Dade Chief Assistant State Attorney Jose Arrojo sent a letter informing Connolly's lawyers that a sealed envelope labeled "confidential" contained the Bulger manuscript and Bulger's statements to the FBI.

That's a gap of over a decade between seizure and disclosure.

Bulger's own words exonerate the man convicted of helping him

The manuscript, written in Bulger's hand, opens with a line that reads almost like a confession and a contradiction rolled into one:

"I never thought the day would come that I'd be writing a story about my criminal activity."

But the most legally significant passages go directly to the question of who actually leaked information that led to Callahan's murder. According to the filing, Bulger identified not Connolly but another FBI agent, John Morris, who was Connolly's supervisor, as his real mole inside the Bureau. Bulger wrote plainly about the misplaced blame:

"I am sure everyone close to me thought all the information I had came from (Connolly)."

"I didn't discourage that thought — sadly for Connolly, he took the heat for warning me to take off and other things that had come from (Morris)."

Read that again. The mobster whose criminal empire formed the basis of the prosecution is saying, in his own handwriting, that the wrong man took the fall. And the document containing that admission was in government hands for more than a decade before it surfaced.

The man who walked free, and the one who didn't

The story of John Morris deserves particular scrutiny. Morris, the FBI supervisor Bulger identified as his actual source, testified against Connolly as part of a cooperation agreement that granted him immunity from prosecution. He became, in the prosecution's framework, a star witness.

Consider the architecture of that arrangement:

• Bulger names Morris as his mole.
• Morris receives immunity in exchange for testimony against Connolly.
• Connolly, the agent Bulger says was wrongly blamed, gets convicted on that testimony.
• The manuscript contradicting the entire theory sits in a sealed envelope for years.

This isn't a technicality. This is the foundation of the case cracking under its own weight.

A prosecution built on concealment

The Connolly case has long carried the odor of institutional overreach. He was indicted on a first-degree murder charge 21 years after the 1982 killing. Prosecutors claimed that Bulger and Stephen Flemmi ordered Callahan's killing, and that Connolly tipped them off that Callahan's ties to them were being investigated in connection with the 1981 killing of Roger Wheeler, who owned World Jai Alai. Mob hitman John Martorano shot Callahan in the back of the head and left his body in the trunk of a car at Miami International Airport.

The violence is real. John Callahan is dead. No one disputes the brutality of what happened.

But the question the courts must now confront is whether the right man was held responsible. Courts have previously found that some evidence in the case was improperly withheld. A longtime prosecutor involved in the Connolly case resigned amid reports of misconduct. And now the late mob boss's own manuscript, seized in 2011 and disclosed in 2024, points the finger squarely at someone who was never prosecuted.

What this case says about prosecutorial power

Conservatives have long warned about the dangers of unchecked prosecutorial authority. The power to charge, to withhold, to grant immunity, and to shape a narrative through selective disclosure is among the most consequential authorities in the justice system. It is also among the least accountable.

The Connolly case is a study in what happens when that power operates in the dark. An agent who handled one of the most dangerous informant relationships in FBI history became the fall guy. The supervisor, Bulger, identified as his actual contact, walked free under an immunity deal. And the evidence that might have changed the outcome gathered dust in a sealed envelope marked "confidential."

Bulger himself, of course, was no hero. The man who led Boston's Winter Hill Gang, who inspired Jack Nicholson's character in the 2006 Martin Scorsese film "The Departed," who was portrayed by Johnny Depp in 2015's "Black Mass," who served as an FBI informant against the Mafia (a claim he denied), was a career criminal by his own admission. He described himself as "a criminal almost all of my life" and wrote about using inside tips to stay ahead of the law.

But the credibility of his manuscript doesn't rest on his character. It rests on the fact that prosecutors had it and didn't turn it over. A mobster's confession that exonerates the defendant is the definition of material evidence. Burying it is the definition of a Brady violation.

Eighty-five years old, and still fighting

John Connolly is 85. He was granted compassionate release four years ago after decades in prison. The motion his lawyers filed Monday may be his last opportunity to clear his name in a court of law.

The facts in that sealed envelope didn't disappear. They were hidden. And the man whose words could have changed everything wrote them down before he died, in his own hand, in a manuscript the FBI seized and the prosecution buried.

Justice delayed is not always justice denied. Sometimes it's justice concealed.