H. Paul Rico
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Harold Paul Rico (April 29, 1925 - January 14, 2004) was a notorious FBI agent who is said to have arranged the killings of two Boston gangsters.
Rico was born in 1925, the son of a Spanish-American father and an Irish-American mother. He attended and graduated from Boston College. He joined the FBI in the 1950's and worked in the Boston area and he used members of the Winter Hill Gang as informants.
In 1956 he recognized a disguised James "Whitey" Bulger in a Revere bar and arrested him. It has been asserted that both he and Bulger would frequent "gay bars" in the Boston area and were acquainted with each other.
In 1964 he set up Ronald Dermody in a mob hit and did the same in 1965 with Edward "Punchy" McLaughlin.
In 1965 Rico received word that gangster Edward "Teddy" Deegan was going to be killed by members of the The Winter Hill Gang but did nothing. He then watched as Joe Barboza testified in court against three men they both knew to be innocent of the crime.
On October 9, 2003 he was indicted for murder in Oklahoma and Florida for the assassination of the millionaire Robert Wheeler on May 27, 1981. He died on January 16, 2004 in a Tulsa hospital where he was moved to from prison. He was still under indictment for the 1981 murder.
[edit] Sources
- FBI Dark Secrets, by Clarence Walker
- [1] The Boston Globe Obituary - "Former FBI agent Rico dies in hospital had pleaded not guilty in businessman's slaying"
- U.S. Social Security Death Index
