Andy Thibault

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Cool Justice 
They Didn't Always Get Their Man
By ANDY THIBAULT, Columnist
Law Tribune Newspapers
April 11, 2005

On a summer nearly evening 24 years ago, FBI agents thought they were about to nail the police chief of Connecticut's largest city.

They had been out to get Joe Walsh, the Bridgeport police superintendent, for some time. They tried a variety of angles. They pressured a cop - unsuccessfully -- to say Walsh had influenced him to say certain things in a statement about a shooting.

"The government tried to use me as a stepping-stone to get to Joe Walsh, figuring they could get him for trying to influence the way I made a statement," a retired patrolman told me. "That was totally ridiculous. Joe Walsh was an OK guy, but he wouldn't go to bat for me if anything was not right. He was a good, all-around cop. You wouldn't want to fool with this guy."

When that approach failed, the FBI tried a sting operation. Their star player, Tommy Marra, was a car thief whose family operated a towing business. An intermediary approached Walsh, saying Marra wanted to make a payment to fix a contract.

"Walsh ran it by me," recalled long-time Inspector Anthony Fabrizi. "I told him, `It stinks. Everyone knows you don't take money. It's got to be a sting.' "

"So I wired him up and I led the squad that staked it out."

Marra was also wired.

Both contingents - the Bridgeport cops and the FBI agents - tipped friendly news photographers who shadowed each squad separately.

The showdown was set for a city parking lot. The cops stood 100 feet away in a firehouse. FBI agents were nearby in a van.

"I trust you, you trust me," Walsh told Marra, who handed him an envelope containing $5,000.

Then, the cops beat the feds to the punch. "Put your hands on the dashboard, you're under arrest for attempted bribery," Walsh told Marra. Marra was cuffed. FBI agents, too late, ran to the car. They demanded their equipment, the money and their witness.

"We told them, `Get out of here. If you want to talk to us, come to the station,' " Farbizi said. "They were going after the wrong horse. He was honest. They didn't believe it."

Putting a wire on a punk like Marra insulted Walsh. He had a photographer there because he knew this guy was wearing a wire and the government was trying to set him up. He wanted to show that before anyone else could report it differently.

The FBI ran for cover as Walsh told the press the next day, "I still don't believe there's room in this country for members of the Justice Department, members of the FBI, to act like Gestapo."

"The FBI has always suffered from living on the border between arrogance and hubris - sometimes they fall in," said long-time Bridgeport civil rights lawyer Burton Weinstein. Walsh was smarter than [former Bridgeport Mayor Joe] Ganim and [former Gov. John] Rowland. He knew his turf. But, to say he was smarter than the FBI may be damnation by faint praise."

Over the years, Fabrizi developed a limited respect for the FBI.

"For an outfit that in the beginning didn't believe in the Mafia, they've come a long way," he said. "They've gotten practical over the years, getting into the streets and fighting the drug gangs. Their experience with the drug gangs helped them do a better job today.

"But, we never got an apology from those bums."

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