Howie Carr: Stupidity not in short supply in Bay State

Has everyone forgotten the old political axiom?

Brian Walshe listens during his arraignment Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023, at Quincy District Court in Quincy, Mass., on a charge of murdering his wife Ana Walshe. Not guilty pleas were entered on behalf of Walshe, 47. Ana Walshe was reported missing Jan. 4, 2023 by her employer in Washington, where the couple has a home. (Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)© Provided by Boston Herald

“Never write when you can speak. Never speak when you can nod. Never nod when you can wink.”

And to add a new admonition: “Never Google when you can use Duck Duck Go.”

Because when you’re using Duck Duck Go, you can delete your questions, or so they say, anyway. But Brian Walshe, accused murderer of his wife in Cohasset, took no such precautions when he was asking those New Year’s questions on Google about how to dispose of a cadaver – and when he could inherit said corpse’s money.

It’s a terrible story, and I don’t mean to make light of it, but really, you have to wonder about a guy who was able to engineer art scams across three continents, but he couldn’t do any better than this at covering his tracks.

Then there’s the crackpot chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, Jim “Jones” Lyons. A private detective is trying to collect a $53,217 bill for surveillance work he did for the hapless state GOP on the sex life of now-Gov. Maura Healey.

Lyons has been claiming he doesn’t owe the money because there’s no signed contract – nothing written, in other words. Which left the p.i. no choice but to turn over all his emails to the not-insane caucus of the state committee.

One of the emails to Lyons is “the weekly update” on the project that apparently didn’t exist.

Then on Oct. 13 Lyons emails back: “As discussed please do not do any additional work on the current project.”

In other words, Lyons stopped the project he claims wasn’t going on.

Then Lyons sends the p.i. this email: “On one sheet of paper please explain what you think we should highlight regarding your investigation.”

But I thought there was no investigation. Wait, though, there’s more. Lyons, a three-time political loser, also tells the p.i.: “I will forward to Tony Nader.”

Nader is the guy who runs the independent expenditure PAC that was supposed to be paying for the investigation that Lyons now says never was. Only one problem, and again, it involved Lyons’ habit of putting down everything on paper.

In this case, Lyons had earlier solicited a written opinion from the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) about whether a state committee like his could collaborate with PAC’s like the one run by… Tony Nader.

No, said OCPF. You may not collude. That’s in writing too. And Jim Jones Lyons took the official opinion and apparently put it in the circular file.

Finally we come to one Mohammed Chowdhury, formerly of Bangladesh, more recently of Roxbury, and now, for the next few years most likely in Club Fed.

Being a newcomer to our land, according to the federal complaint, perhaps he was not assimilated enough to realize that when one solicits a “hitman” to handle a murder in these here parts, you are almost certainly talking to an undercover cop.

Mohammed made so many errors in his attempt to have his wife rubbed out, it’s hard to know where to begin. First, he initially made a down payment of $500, after which the would-be assassin vanished.

You know, when you can’t trust a hitman, who the hell can you trust?

But Mohammed was not deterred. He still wanted to get rid of his wife, and her new boyfriend. After all, he told the cops, he had “paid money for her” in Bangladesh and then “she cheated on him with another guy and kicked CHOWDHURY out of the house.”

The first clue that something was not quite on the level might have been when two “hitmen” showed up at Charlie’s House of Pizza in Dorchester for the sit-down. A witness, in other words.

But he was careful, Mohammed was. When he arrived at the pizza palace, he “wrapped his face in a scarf… then requested that the meet be moved outside to the car because there may be people and cameras inside the restaurant.”

There was a third undercover cop in the wired-up car – another witness. Mohammed tried to bargain.

“(He) asked if he could make monthly payments because he does not make much money and worked in a convenience store.”

In other words, he wanted the hitmen to do a hit… on the arm. They told him no, they needed $10,000 per murder, with a deposit upfront.

“Yeah, I understand,” he admitted, “but uh, it’s too expensive for me, you know, because honestly, I don’t make that much money, you know? I work for $12 per hour, and that’s not his problem, you know, that’s just, like, my situation, you know? I thought it was going to be cheaper, you know?”

Hey pal, you’re not in Dhaka anymore, you know?

All this is transcribed into the complaint from video and audio.

It doesn’t sound like there was too much nodding or winking going on, although Mohammed did communicate with the hitmen on Telegram, which is described as “an encrypted messaging application… (that) sets messages to self-destruct.”

So Mohammed was at least one step ahead of Brian Walshe, the native-born rich kid.

Eventually, Mohammed bargained the cops down to a two-for-one deal – both cheaters were to get whacked for $10,000, with a grand down and the rest to be paid “in installments.”

The boyfriend would be whacked first – “he look like me, little bit beard… I want him first… Not killed, just, you know, just do something like, like you know, beat him up very well….”

This is starting to remind me of Anthony “the Saint” St. Laurent, the Mafia soldier from Providence whose g-i woes led to his underworld moniker, “Public Enema Number One.”

The Saint wanted to whack Bobby DeLuca. The Saint was in a wheelchair, doing a federal bid at Devens. So the G-men sent in a “hitman” to talk to the Saint.

He ordered up the hit on Bobby.

“I want you should shoot him in the head,” he instructed, “and then tell him, ‘This is from The Saint.’”

It always seemed to me that it would have been preferable for DeLuca to hear that this was from the Saint before, rather than after, his brains were blown out.

They let the Saint out of prison just before he died in 2016. Bobby DeLuca testified against Frank Salemme and seems to have disappeared into WitSec – Witness Security.

As for Mohammed, I don’t think he’ll do a lot of time. He checks a couple of boxes. His only drawback as a sympathetic figure seems to be that he actually worked for a living. That will be held against him, in a court of law in Massachusetts.

LINK