The Power of Words. Top criminal prosecutor takes his own life

11.25.97
Top criminal prosecutor takes his own life
Hundreds mourn Michael F. Burns at a hastily arranged Mass in downtown Providence.
By W. ZACHARY MALINOWSKI, MIKE STANTON and TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writers

       Michael F. Burns, for the past 2 1/2 years chief of the criminal division of the Rhode Island attorney general's office, committed suicide over the weekend, in a wooded area across the street from his house, in Johnston.
       He was 39.
       In his years of battling organized crime, Burns had made many friends within Rhode Island's law-enforcement community. More than 200 of his friends and colleagues, jolted by word of his death, crowded into a chapel in downtown Providence yesterday to mourn him.
       Burns had been dogged in the past year by accusations of prosecutorial misconduct, resulting in the dismissal of a sweeping corruption case against former Governor Edward D. DiPrete.
       Burns was also the overseer of Atty. Gen. Jeffrey B. Pine's narcotics Strike Force, which is now the target of a federal investigation.
       And in recent weeks Burns had complained to friends about various professional and personal setbacks that had bedeviled him since his promotion to chief of the criminal division - including embarrassing publicity over a domestic-abuse complaint by the woman who was then his wife.
       Burns was also concerned about being made a political issue in Attorney General Pine's re-election campaign, next year, and about an upcoming Journal-Bulletin series on the DiPrete case.
       But his death stunned his closest friends, who said it contradicted his reputation as a hard-driving prosecutor who put away notorious mobsters and other hardened criminals.
       "This was antithetical to everything he stood for - Mike wasn't a quitter," said Gerald Coyne, a former prosecutor who had known Burns since college. "I'm sure a lot of people today are asking, 'What the hell could it be?'
       "Whatever demons he had," said Coyne, "he probably had for a long, long time."

       BURNS'S BODY WAS discovered by the state police late Sunday night, lying in the snowy woods beside a stream that winds through the rural neighborhood of Johnston's Winsor Avenue.
       Several sources told The Journal-Bulletin that Burns had shot himself in the head. The weapon, they said, was found next to his body.
       The state police declined to provide details of his death, but said that it was not considered suspicious.
       Burns, who was divorced, had no children and lived alone. He died sometime Saturday night or early Sunday morning, the state police said.
       The state police had been alerted that something was amiss by members of Burns's family, after he had failed to pick up a nephew whom he was to take to a Boston Celtics basketball game Sunday night.
       The state police impounded Burns's car, a late-model Saab parked in the driveway of his neat green farmhouse-style home. The car was towed to state- police headquarters, in Scituate, "to continue the investigation," said Capt. Steven M. Pare, detective commander of the state police.
       Pare declined to provide further details of the investigation.
       The state medical examiner will conduct an autopsy.

       SHOCK AND GRIEF yesterday engulfed the attorney general's headquarters, on Providence's South Main Street, and swept through Rhode Island's law-enforcement community, where Burns had many friends.
       The business of justice slowed in both state and federal courtrooms, as prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges and police officers paused to remember one of their own.
       In the afternoon, several hundred mourners crowded into the St. Francis Chapel, in downtown Providence, for a memorial service.
       Attorney General Pine, who delivered the eulogy, spoke of Mike Burns's sense of humor, and how beloved he was within Rhode Island's close-knit law-enforcement community. Later, Pine issued a statement expressing his grief over the loss of "our friend and colleague."
       "All who knew Mike mourn his passing," said Pine, "while remembering his career achievements and personal bonds that he formed with so many people in and out of law enforcement."
       The prominent Providence defense lawyer Stephen R. Famiglietti said of Burns: "He was unequivocally the most caring and kind person I've ever known in my life. He was loved by more people than one could ever imagine, and if you were his friend, there's absolutely nothing he wouldn't do for you within his limitations."
       Burns had also been close to his four sisters and their families, and he frequently took his nieces and nephews on outings. The family issued a statement, through the state police, requesting privacy.
       "This is an immeasurable loss to the Burns family," the statement said. "Michael was a beloved brother to his four sisters and a treasure to his friends and countless people. The family wishes to grieve in private."
       The funeral will be private.
       Burns, who grew up in Pawtucket, was the son of that city's well-known postmaster, the late Francis M. Burns.
       He became a prosecutor in 1983, and, with the exception of four years in private practice, devoted his life to public service. He worked for four Rhode Island attorneys general: Dennis J. Roberts II, Arlene Violet, James E. O'Neil and Jeffrey Pine.

       MIKE BURNS always wanted to be a prosecutor.
       After graduating from Boston College in 1980, he enrolled at New England School of Law, in Boston. He spent his summers as an intern in the Rhode Island attorney general's office.
       Unlike many interns who draft legal briefs and do research in the law library, Burns got an early taste of the courtroom. Veteran prosecutors took him under their wing and let him sit at the prosecution table during trials.
       Former attorney general Roberts hired Burns as a full-time prosecutor in 1983, after he passed the bar examination.
       "Mike immediately became a stand-out prosecutor," Roberts said yesterday. "As a prosecutor, you have to be willing and very strong. Mike had those abilities. He felt a real sense of public duty."
       It didn't take long for Burns to make his mark. He advanced quickly and became a senior prosecutor. The young lawyer took on cases normally reserved for veteran prosecutors. He was tough, confrontational and confident.
       In 1987, he persuaded a Superior Court jury to convict mobster Frank L. "Bobo" Marrapese in the gangland slaying of Richard A. "Dickie" Callei.
       The conviction was impressive for two reasons: Callei had been killed 12 years earlier, and Marrapese was defended by Richard M. Egbert, of Boston, who was gaining stature as a New England criminal-defense lawyer.
       The next year, Burns was thrust into a scandal involving a convicted criminal-turned-mob-witness whom he was overseeing: Peter Gilbert.
       Gilbert, who was living in an apartment in the Providence Police Station, was stricken and died en route to a skydiving class in Connecticut. The police found cocaine in the car in which he was traveling. They later learned that all the while Gilbert had been in police custody he had used drugs, taken out- of-state trips and carried a gun.
       After the Gilbert flap and a falling out with Attorney General O'Neil, Burns left the office, in early 1989, to go into private practice in Pawtucket.
       But by 1992 he wanted to return to his life as a prosecutor.
       He threw his support behind Jeff Pine, a former colleague who was challenging O'Neil for the position of attorney general. When Pine upset O'Neil in the 1992 election, Burns returned to the department as chief of special prosecutions, the unit that prosecutes white-collar crime.

       IN 1994 Burns prosecuted Thomas F. Fay, the chief justice of the Supreme Court who resigned and was found guilty of ethics-law violations. Burns also got a conviction against Edward D. Humphrey, an ex-convict who shot and critically wounded a state trooper on Route 95.
       In April 1995, Attorney General Pine demoted the respected long-time head of the criminal division, James W. Ryan, and replaced him with Burns. It was a controversial switch.
       Shortly before Ryan's demotion, Ryan had complained to Pine that the attorney general's highly publicized narcotics strike force was spinning out of control and improperly using informants.
       Under Burns's supervision, the problems with the strike force escalated. Dozens of people complained that they had been wrongly arrested and prosecuted.
       In the summer of 1996, after Pine had asked the state police to investigate a dubious informant, the strike force's problems became public and Pine disbanded the unit. Subsequently, the FBI and federal prosecutors joined the investigation.
       Meanwhile, back in May 1995 - the month after Burns had taken charge of the criminal division - his personal life became a public issue. One night his wife, Patricia Burns, called a 911 operator in Johnston crying, "My husband just beat on me."
       The investigation was dropped, the police said, because Patricia Burns declined to cooperate. A month later Michael Burns, who was never criminally charged, filed for divorce; he had been married for just nine months.
       Last year, the General Assembly cited the episode in sealing 911 tapes and transcripts from the public.

       IN THE FALL OF 1996, Burns found himself at the center of a firestorm over the attorney general's handling of one of the biggest corruption cases in Rhode Island's history - the racketeering, bribery and extortion charges brought against former Governor DiPrete and his son Dennis.
       The DiPretes' lawyers accused Burns and his fellow prosecutors of withholding crucial evidence. Burns then found himself on the witness stand, subjected to days of questioning about his actions.
       Early this year, Attorney General Pine removed Burns and the prosecution team from the case. Then, in March, Superior Court Judge Dominic F. Cresto dismissed the case, blasting the attorney general's office.
       The case is now on appeal to the state Supreme Court. During the oral arguments two weeks ago, Burns stood near a door at the back of the courtroom, periodically ducking in and out of the hearing.
       Burns also figured prominently in a controversy surrounding Wayne David Collins Jr.
       Last April and May, The Journal-Bulletin reported that Burns had helped Collins, a convicted felon, erase his criminal record and obtain a gun permit and bail bondsman's license.
       Under state law, Collins - who had been convicted of conspiracy in an armed $100,000 heist in Cranston - should not have been eligible to have his record erased. Collins said that he had turned his life around and befriended many in law enforcement, including Burns.
      In the ensuing controversy, Collins surrendered his bail bondsmen's license and moved out of state.
       "The guy's heart was with the police," Collins said yesterday of Burns. "It's a big loss to law enforcement. It's just a shame."

       FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES who came into contact with Burns in his last days said they'd noticed nothing amiss.
       On Friday, Burns appeared in the chambers of the presiding justice of the Superior Court, at the Licht Judicial Complex, in Providence. Burns was there for a conference on the state's criminal case against the Eklof Marine Corp. for last year's oil spill of the barge North Cape.
       The presiding justice, Joseph F. Rodgers Jr., said yesterday that Burns had seemed untroubled.
       "Nothing that alarmed me," said Rodgers.
       Burns, a big sports fan, had a typical weekend planned.
       Raymond Grimes, deputy director of the Rhode Island Lottery Commission, saw the prosecutor on Friday at Keno Night in Blake's Tavern, in downtown Providence. Burns was with four or five friends and looked happy, said Grimes, laughing and joking and closely following the Keno games.
       "He couldn't have been nicer," said Grimes.
       On Saturday, Burns joined several college friends for a football game at his alma mater, Boston College, where he was a season-ticket holder. After the game - a victory over Army - the group went to the Hammond Lounge, a bar in Brookline, Mass.
       That Saturday night, Burns attended a Providence Bruins hockey game, at the Providence Civic Center.
       By Sunday evening, his family grew alarmed when Burns failed to pick up his nephew for the Boston Celtics game. Relatives and friends, unable to reach him by telephone, then went to his house. His car was in the driveway; his keys and other personal effects that he usually carried were in the house.
       The relatives and friends then called the state police, who discovered the body.
       One of Burns's closest friends, the defense lawyer Stephen Famiglietti, said that, to his knowledge, Burns had left no note.
       Burns owned a gun, which Famiglietti said he believed Burns prosecutor kept in his house, for protection, because of the nature of his job.
       Although Burns sounded fine when Famiglietti last spoke with him, a little more than a week ago, his friend said that the prosecutor had seemed down for some time.
       "It was clear he was depressed," said Famiglietti, "devastated by the adverse publicity he was getting, starting with the 911 (call), the terrible marriage and then the DiPrete case. He had a tough life. He never seemed to get a break, and he was a nice guy.
       "I was concerned about it," said Famiglietti, "but I never, in my wildest dreams, felt he would do something like this."
       Gerald Coyne, the former prosecutor who was an old friend of Burns's, said that Burns had recently seemed more upbeat and less anxious.
       Even in the best of times, said Coyne, the stress of running the attorney general's criminal division, with its 100-plus employees, is unimaginable to the average person.
       "If every prosecutor who works for you solves all but one of his problems every week," said Coyne, "that means that every hour of the week you're getting somebody's worst problem.
       "I would hope that people would recognize that he devoted his adult professional life to law enforcement in this state."

Past writing tips | About The Providence Journal's Writing Program | E-mail us | Order How I Wrote the Story | Writing-related Web links
Back to main