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Paul Corsetti
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Corsetti was a second-generation
Hearst police reporter, a Vietnam vet. In 1981, he started working on a
story about the murder of Louis Litif, a Southie bookie and drug dealer
whom Whitey had murdered at Triple O’s. After making a few phone calls,
he got a call from a guy who dangled a few interesting tidbits and said
he’d like to sit down with Corsetti, at Clarke’s, a bar in Quincy
Market. That night, as Corsetti sat at the bar, a middleaged man sidled up onto the next stool and tried to engage the reporter in conversations. When Corsetti said he was waiting for someone, the man said, “You’re waiting for me, mother(bleeper). I’m Jimmy Bulger and I kill people.” He then took out a piece of paper and read a few facts to Corsetti – his home address in Medford, the make and model and license plates of both his and his wife’s car, and, most ominously, the address of the day-care center where Corsetti dropped off his young daughter every day. The next day Corsetti showed up in the city room wearing a gun. He met with the Boston PD, who told him they “had” Whitey for 50 hits but could do nothing. Then he met with Mafia crew chief Larry Zannino, who likewise told him he could do nothing with Whitey because “he’s bleepin’ crazy.” Corsetti finally discovered that Whitey was concerned that the Herald was working on a story about his brother. When Zannino disabused Whitey of that notion, Corsetti started getting phone calls again, providing him with enough information to write a story. There were no more threats. Corsetti died in 2004. |
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