By Ellen O'Brien, Globe Staff, 5/22/1996

A federal grand jury investigating the activities of James J. (Whitey) Bulger, Stephen J. (The Rifleman) Flemmi, and Francis P. (Cadillac Frank) Salemme has added four murder charges dating back to a late 1960s gang war to the existing racketeering indictments against Flemmi and Salemme.

US Attorney Donald K. Stern yesterday said that Flemmi and Salemme are charged with the 1967 murders of three brothers -- Edward, Walter and William Bennett -- and another man, Richard Grasso.

Bulger is not charged with the murders.

The new charges refer to a ``gang war' on the streets of Boston in the late 1960s, and allege that Flemmi and Salemme aligned themselves with Somerville's Winter Hill Gang.

Reached yesterday by telephone, Flemmi's attorney, Anthony Cardinale, said he viewed the new charges as a reaction to the defendant's request for a dismissal of the original racketeering indictments.

``This is a direct response to the defendant's motion to dismiss, I guess, in an effort to save the initial indictment,'' said Cardinale.

Edward Bennett, 47, was last seen alive on Jan. 18, 1967, and was reported missing March 6, 1967. On April 10, 1967, Walter Bennett was reported missing from his home on Everett Street in Dorchester. He had been gone since April 3. The bodies were never found.

A third brother, William F. Bennett, 56, was shot to death and pushed out of a car in Dorchester on Dec. 23, 1967.

``There is an accumulation of information,'' Stern said yesterday.

``For example, the indictment alleges some conversations and facts that have been known to investigators for years, and some have developed recently.''

Stern also announced that sports bribery charges against longtime fugitive John V. Martorano have been restated in a separate indictment.

The US attorney explained that Martorano had previously been charged in the same indictment as Bulger, Flemmi, Salemme and his brother, James M. Martorano, but was now indicted separately to address his alleged involvement in a large-scale horse race- fixing scheme in the 1970s.

Bulger, the alleged mobster from South Boston, is a fugitive from a year-old racketeering indictment.

Flemmi and Salemme are being held in a US marshal's lockup.

This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 5/22/1996.
© Copyright 1996 Globe Newspaper Company.