U.S. must pay $101.7 million to men framed by FBI

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A federal judge Thursday ordered the government to pay more than $101 million in the case of four men who spent decades in prison for a 1965 murder they didn't commit after the FBI withheld evidence of their innocence.

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Peter Limone, right, and Joseph Salvati embrace after they were awarded a $101.7 mllion settlement.

The FBI encouraged perjury, helped frame the four men and withheld for more than three decades information that could have cleared them, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said in issuing her ruling Thursday.

She called the government's argument that the FBI had no duty to get involved in the state case "absurd."

Peter Limone, Joseph Salvati and the families of the two other men who died in prison had sued the federal government for malicious prosecution.

They argued that Boston FBI agents knew mob hitman Joseph "the Animal" Barboza lied when he named the men as killers in the 1965 death of Edward Deegan. They said Barboza was protecting a fellow FBI informant, Vincent "Jimmy" Flemmi, who was involved.

The four men convicted on Barboza's lies were treated as "acceptable collateral damage" because the FBI's priority at the time was taking down the Mafia, their attorneys said.